Amy's First Kiss
by Sci-Fi Raptor
Summary: AU: Want action, plot twists, and love interests. Then read what happens when a pilot from an advanced civilization crash lands on Zi and meets up with a wideeyed, enthusiastic teen named Amy. You won't believe the outcome!
1. Default Chapter

Amy's First Kiss

**Intro**

By: Sci-Fi-Raptor

Disclaimer: I Don't own Zoids

***

_Hi, my name is RZ-1990. Well, that's my ID number at the Academy. You get used to being called by that, because if they called everyone by their real name, at least ten different heads would turn, and the whole school would be in a mess. So they call us by our ID number and we just had to get used to it. My birth name is Crass Fisheye. I was born on the Moon, in the NASA Academy for Deep Space Research (NASAADSR for short…yeah, short). My parents were both scientists that worked there, and I grew up there. When I was young, I met a kid my age named Victor. He was a Terran, and said he came from a place called Mexico. I've never seen anything on Terra, but he and my parents told me that it was once a very beautiful place, but got soiled because of all the pollution. The only places left untainted are the deserts and arctic tundra, and though they may be harsh, they have their own beauty. I've seen a few pictures of them, and I can't refute that…_

_So Victor and I grew up, watching all the shuttle missions to the outer planets, wanting to become one of those Astronauts and go into the abyss. But things went really wild when the eggheads discovered faster than light travel. I don't really understand how it works, but it sounds like you teleport or something. Then they discovered other planets with advanced and thriving civilizations on them, and we started negotiations. In a few short years, we made alliances with them, and started colonizing our and nearby solar systems. Unfortunately, we also made some enemies._

_It's really a shame, we could have been friends. But they just have this thing against us, and for some reason want to destroy us, and anything else that doesn't look like them (including people of their own race that looked different, but, until recently, we weren't innocent of that ourselves). So as I was saying, we became enemies with them, and we got advanced all of a sudden. Man back in the day, if you wanted to take something from the moon to Uranus, you'd have to strap it in a shuttle, and wait 10 months for it to get there (if you were lucky enough that it actually got there). Nowadays, we just put it in this weird looking ship and zap! It's there._

_So anyway, Victor and I grew up wanting to be pilots, and since we lived in the Academy, and our parents were workers there, we had an easy start. But it was hell getting where we got, and eventually, we were certified pilots. So here we are, getting ready to go into uncharted space, on that adventure that we've been dreaming of since we were kids. But I gotta tell ya, even though I've been dreaming of this moment all my life, I'm scared. But I'm pretending to all brave just to look cool in front of Victor. He's gonna pilot the transport ship with all the equipment in it, while I pilot the scout/defense ship. I actually wanted to have his ship (both of us did) cause its really cool and high tech, but I got stuck with this ship cause I seemed to have a natural talent for the HES (hostile environment suit). It's this nifty patch that goes on your hand, and when you, it or the ship thinks that you're in danger, this suit comes out of it, and its so cool!!! I'd tell you about this now journal, but we're about to launch, and I gotta get prepped. So until we land, see ya later!_

***

"So…um tell me again why our ships are combined again?" I asked Victor.

"Bro… how many times have I told you this?"

"Lets see… ten!" I said. His sweat dropped.

"Alright… our ships are attached to each other, so that if anything goes wrong with the fold-space generator, we'll both end up in the same place. The reason is, my ship can figure out where we are, but it can't really defend us if we go into hostile territory, so your ship has to be there to defend us."

"Oh…" I said, still not sure why. "But why don't they put weapons on your ship, and the computer stuff in mine?"

"Cause, bro, the generators can only fold a certain volume, and if we tried to synthesis both ships, it wouldn't fit."

"Oh… that sucks…"

"Well, launch is in ten minutes, so we should board our ships" said Victor.

"Ya. See you soon man!" I said, and gave him a high five.

"You too amigo!" he said. "And Crass…"

"Yeah Victor?"

"No matter what happens, I want you to know that you was one of the coolest people I've ever known"

"Really?" I said, and started getting teary. I always break down with long goodbyes. Especially when it seems like I'm never gonna see someone again.

"Yeah bro… and stop crying man. That's embarrassing." I stopped, and we boarded our ships. I never noticed someone picking up my journal off the ground, that I dropped by accident, who started chuckling while he was listening to the history part.

We prepped our ships, and were ready to launch. Victor was piloting a Titan XI. It looked like a black metallic scarab beetle, but with the legs folded under it and with twin ion boosters in the back. It was a research/ reconnaissance vehicle with sub-/ultraspace radar, long-range detection and broadcasting equipment, warp computers, surface and orbiting analyzing equipment, jamming and intercepting equipment, and light defense. I don't know too much about it, except that it cost more than my ship to build. My ship is a Herculean X2. It looks like an Apache assault helicopter (but much larger), but most of the weapons are hidden. It has four multidirectional, rapid fire double ER PPC's (two mounted on the bottom of the wings, and top on the top of the wings, which were normally covered by a heat shield during takeoff and landing), two multi directional heavy naval gauss cannons (one hidden on each side of the cockpit) quasi-multidirectional long-range heavy lasers (two hidden in each side of the cockpit), a forward facing missile pod array (hidden beneath the cockpit) that could fire LMR's (long range missile), SMR's (short-range missile), or a NARC homing beacon. [By hidden I meant that they were normally inside the ship, but popped out when in use] It also had an internal cloaking device, nuclear (cold fusion) reactor, navigational equipment, orbital satellite receiver and launcher (basically, I could launch a satellite to orbit the planet I was on, and get instant information about any particular area, such as topography, wind patterns, weather, etc. from it). It also had a storage room where I kept my HEV's (hostile environment vehicles). I had a Jenner IIC (light recon), Kodiak (heavy assault), Diashi (heavy assault), MadCat (medium assault with limited flight capability), a Harrier IIC (the modern version of the Harrier. It had space flight capabilities), and an ATT (amphibious troop transport. It was capable of carrying one HEV, and up to eight people). All of them had an internal nuclear reactor, cloaking and hologram device (a hologram would cover each HEV to make it look like it was something from that planet, so I could easily move about undetected), and an extra spot for the person on the other ship.

"Bravo 2484, are you ready for go" said the Command Center.

"Bravo 2484 ready for go" said Victor. He had control of both ships while we were traveling, but I would detach when we arrived at our destination.

"Bravo 2484 you are clear for go." said the Command Center.

"Bravo 2484 initiating launch sequence" said Victor, and unlatched us from the flight deck. I looked out of my cockpit, and saw Delta 2498 launching. Their ships were pointing in the direction they were headed, and then pop! They just vanished.

"Bravo 2484 launching from Lunar Base 001 in T-minus 30" said Victor.

"Acknowledged" said the Command Center. "You are due back to Lunar Base 001 in 1500 Terran hours (about two months). If for any reason you do not return, a rescue team will be sent 24 hours after your scheduled return date. You do know the consequences for being late?"

"Yes mom…" Victor said to his mom. If anyone came late, they would lose their piloting privilege. But that was only if they were behind, and nothing serious happened to them. But if the rescue team found out that we were attacked, or the Home Worlds were there, the fleet would be sent in, and the fleet is not something to be taken lightly. It has happened before, and it only happened when the scout team found a Xi'an Home World. Unfortunately, it destroyed the planet and got away before the fleet arrived. But normally they can send a transmission to base to ask for help, instead of waiting till their mission cycle was over. Victor started the countdown.

"T-minus 10…9…8…" _Goodbye mom, dad._ "6…" _Goodbye Academy_. "5…" _Goodbye Earth._ "3…" _Goodbye mankind. _"2…" _Until we meet again. _"1" We were gone in an instant. 

***

They're called the Xi'an. They're an ancient race that has been traveling the stars eons before mankind was on Earth. They were once a respectable race. They went from system to system, and helped any lesser race they could find. They would unite them from wars and shared their advanced technology with them. It's rumored that they once came to Earth. They travel on these huge ships called Home Worlds. That's what they are like, giant metallic (if they're made of metal) worlds. There are supposed to be three of them, and their whole race is inside of them. But sometime, they went to a world, and became enslaved. I don't really know much about it, but something really bad happened to them during that time. They got free, but instead of helping anything they met, they destroyed it. And so, whenever they find any race before we do, they annihilate it. But they don't bring their ships to do it. They send one agent, who makes everyone on the planet hate each other, and eventually destroy themselves. And if they can't get them to do that, they call in their Home World, and destroy the planet itself. We know this because they did that to a planet that we had discovered too late. Billions died… But their most deadly ability is to shape shift. They've done a lot of damage to us with that little ability. Their ships are really powerful, but with the encounters we've had, we've managed to stand up to them. So they try to avoid us, just like we (us and all races allied to us) do. But they seek out lesser races and destroy them, so we try to find them first and protect them. That's the secondary mission of any deep space crew, to report findings of any undiscovered race, and wait for the officials and Fleet to arrive. If that happens, we would just cloak (something we copied from one of their captured ships), and observe the races customs to facilitate negotiations between our officials and the race. But if they find a Xi'an Home World presence, they are to call for help, or wait until their cycle is over, which would trigger the fleet to come after them.

***

We arrived instantly. And we knew that we weren't alone. The planet we had come to colonize was definitely taken. There were HUGE satellites orbiting it.

"Aww man bro… we're gonna be stuck here watching whoever's down there instead of exploring the place!" said a disappointed Victor.

"Ya… but it might be interesting. These people don't look too primitive."

"Got a point there, bro. Well, I guess we gotta report this to the NASAADSR"

"Well, hop to it bro. But I wanna check out this place's satellites while you're at it. I'm undocking now." I said, and did as I told. Then Victor's ship blew up.

"Victor!" I screamed. Victor was my main man. He was my brother. _We were so close, and now he's gone. But what happened to him?_ I got my answer, it was a Xi'an starship, and it was ready for a fight, and I was ready to deliver. _Bring it on you bastards!_ They took my closest friend's life. They were gonna pay.

The ship started firing its energy shots at me, but I turned on my shields. Their energy shots are useless against our shields, but their missiles work. And it started shooting them at me. I initiated my sub light thrusters, and accelerated towards the planet. None of my weapons could shoot the missiles down, but if they hit the planet's atmosphere, they would blow up. So I sped off to the planet, and the Xi'an ship sped of after me, the missile pods blazing. I barrel rolled, twisted left and right, and did everything I could to dodge the shots. A few of the missiles crossed paths, and blew up on themselves, and some just ran out of fuel. I engaged my PPC's and gauss cannons, since they were the only things I had that could shoot behind me, and make the eat particle pulses and high speed shells. But then a missile hit my aft thruster, and I was spinning out of control. 

"Shit!" All I had left were my directional thrusters, but that was all I needed; I had already reached the planet. I skimmed the atmosphere, and all the missiles instantly exploded. The Xi'an ship was trying to get away, but my PPC's had done too much damage to it, and it was on a freefall into the planet. But the same was happening to me. I was loosing speed, fast, and there was no way I could establish an orbit around the planet. So both ships were falling towards the planet, but we both continued to fire at each other. They used their lasers, hoping that my shields would fail, and me with my lasers, since they were in range, and my PPC's and gauss cannons would get melted away if I pointed them at their ships. It looked like we would crash pretty close to each other, but the Xi'an ship started to explode. It exploded with a huge flash, and pushed itself away from my ship. All there was left was rubble, and the pilot. Like I said, those guys are really powerful, and that's the proof of my statement. This was the first time I had ever seen a Xi'an, and I was probably the first to see one in its true form; even from this distance I could see its cold gray eyes. 

"Crass" said my computer "it is likely that if you are inside the ship when it crash-lands, you will be killed. I suggest that you eject and go into your HES. Then you should survive the impact."

"What about you?" I said, since this ship was the last thing I had left.

"I should survive the crash, and the self repair systems should make me intact in a few days."

"You have a self repair system?" I said, not knowing this before.

"Yes. It was a last minute upgrade."

"Oh." I said, but was cut off. The computer ejected me, and turned on my HES. It's scary to watch that thing activate sometimes. The patch glows, and then these metallic scales come out of it, and cover my body, and depending on the nature and degree of the danger, it will form a specialized suit. This time it was making a suit with heavy armor on it. Unfortunately for me, I was turning upside down, and my head was facing the ground. So when I landed, I landed on my head. Boom! The crater that I made was a few feet deep, and I just stayed there, balanced on my head for some time. I finally muttered "Ow," and fell to my side. Then I got up, and walked a bit and saw my ship crash-land far away from me. I started walking towards it, but everything went black, and I could feel my HES retracting.

***

This is my second Zoid fic. (Zoid fic? Looks more like one of those kiddy space adventure things.) Well… see the next chapter where it officially begins. If you didn't know this stuff now, it would be really confusing, and I don't know how to put stuff like this in the story, so BACK OFF! Well, anyway, enjoy the fic, and have fun imagining what the title means.

Questions? Comments? Send them to yarft@yahoo.com


	2. Insertion

**Amy's First Kiss**

**Chapter One: Insertion**

By: Sci-Fi-Raptor

Disclaimer: I Don't own Zoids

***

How can you see into my eyes

like open doors

leading you down into my core

where I've become so numb?

Without a soul;

my spirit's sleeping somewhere cold,

until you find it there and lead it back home.

(Wake me up.)

Wake me up inside.

(I can't wake up.)

Wake me up inside.

(Save me. )

Call my name and save me from the dark.

(Wake me up. )

Bid my blood to run.

(I can't wake up. )

Before I come undone.

(Save me. )

Save me from the nothing I've become. 

-Evanescence (Bring Me Back to Life)

***

Hi! My name is Amy Rose. I'm an average girl that lives in a quiet town, called Providence, near the mountains, which is near New Helic City. All right… the town isn't quiet. There's this gang that always bullies us around, but they haven't done anything drastic. Well… lately they've been wanting stuff from us, but we're not gonna give it to them. Nothing drastic yet anyway…

Well, enough about not me, on to me! I was born here and grew up with many friends. My family is loaded, and I get a lot of stuff. I have pair of gorgeous gray-green eyes, and flowing red hair with picture perfect bangs. What's really great about my looks is that I don't have to spend too much time on them, its all natural, and I don't use much makeup. I just finished the 11th grade, and am now a senior! I can finally drive and everything, and my parents gave me all these freedoms. They also gave me an expensive new car to drive. It's the latest from Fiari, the new FXG101. 

Since the 7th grade, I've had this HUGE crush on this guy. I never told anyone, but it accidentally slipped while I was talking to my girlfriends last week, and then they somehow set me up with him. Man, those girls are something. Well, here I am, off to meet him in this romantic restaurant. If he's anything like I've heard, he's gonna give me a romantic dinner with a nice car ride. But best of all, he's a great kisser! And cute too, of course, but I've never been kissed, and always wondered what it was like. So, now I'm headed to the restaurant we're supposed to meet in, in my new car of course, which I'm parking now. Now I'm going inside. But as I walked in, I stopped; I heard my name, and realized that he (Matt) is talking to his friends about me.

"So, why'd you agree to go out with her?" asked Matt's friend.

"Duh! Cause she's hot." He replied. _He thinks I'm cute too. I think I'm gonna faint… _"But I know a lot of hot girls. The only reason I'm going out with her is cause she's LOADED! Man, her parents have enough money to buy this whole town!"

"Ya, you're right about that dog" said another friend, and they all started laughing. _Be cause I'm loaded? Why that no good shallow… that jerk! He doesn't deserve me!_ I thought. I grabbed a nearby vase and threw it at his head, and ran away crying.

"Ow! What the hell was that?" said Matt

"I think it was the chick"

"Oh snap! Did she just hear me? Damn, there goes all that money…" said Matt.

I just kept on running until I reached my car. Then I put the pedal to the metal, and headed off into some direction. After a while, I cooled off, and I stopped. I looked around, and realized that this was the area that the meteor was supposed to have crashed into. So I looked around for it, trying to keep my mind off that jerk.

I'm no great hiker or anything, so I stayed inside my car, and just drove through the area. Then I spotted this thing in my path, and stopped a few yards away. I got out of my car, and went up to it. When I took a closer look, I realized it was a guy, and he was unconscious. He was wearing this weird looking black over all with these weird symbols and emblems on it. He was also cute…

"Oh my god" I gasped, and I brought my car closer. I struggled to get him inside my car, and drove him to the hospital. When I got there, I checked him in, and waited for what the doctor would say.

***

CHOAM online… repair status… 35% complete. Status of Crass… unconscious. Not in any apparent danger. Activating resuscitation mode via CORE module. 

***

Back in the hospital:

"Miss…" said the doctor.

"Rose… Amy Rose" I said, taking my cue.

"Miss Rose. Do you have any relation with the person you brought in?"

"No"

"Do you know anyone that knows him?"

"No"

"I was afraid of that"

"Why? Is he gonna be alright?"

"Well… he's alright physically, but he has amnesia."

"Oh that's bad. Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Yes. He wasn't seriously injured, so it should wear off in a few days, so it would be helpful if you could take care of him until he gets better."

"Alright," I said "but I have to ask my parents first"

"Sure" he said. I called mom and dad, and they Okayed it, so I said I could. So they put him under my custody, and I went home with him.

***

"So… what's your name?" I asked him.

"Um…Crass. I think"

"That's a good start. My name is Amy Rose. Do you know where you come from?"

"I'm not sure…"

"That's okay. Do you know what happened to you?"

"No"

"That's okay too." I said. "You'll remember eventually. But first, we gotta get you new clothes. You need to wear something normal." I loved shopping, and this was a perfect excuse. And if daddy asked me why I spent so much, I would innocently say that the poor kid needed clothes. So we went to the mall, and got him some clothes. I picked out a few for him, and let him loose in the changing room. Then he came out… and I could barely contain my laughter. He was wearing his pants on his arms, and his shirt on his legs, and a pair of underwear on his head. "Lucky" for me, he still had that overall on.

"You wear it like this" I showed him a picture of a guy wearing the outfit he was wearing. "And you have to take off that thing you're wearing." I giggled as a saw him going back into the changing room… he was like a little kid.

He came back shortly, and he looked normal… and cuter than before. Those clothes were made for him. He walked up to me. 

"Like this?"

"Yes" I said.

"Now what?"

"Now we get you into school." I said. Just cause he had amnesia didn't mean he would get to miss school, especially if I had to suffer through it.

"Okay" he said, and started walking out of the store.

"Hey! We have to pay for that first."

"Pay for it?" I didn't say anything, just charged it all to my card.

"What does that mean?"

"I'll tell you on the way"

"Okay" As we left, I saw Matt, so I held onto Crass' arms, to make it look like he was my boyfriend. Crass asked me what I was doing, and I said I'd explain to him later.

We went to my car, and headed to school, and I attempted to explain why we had to pay for his clothes. I ended up explaining the whole economy of Zi, since he could only understand it that way, but it was okay, since that's my specialty. Luckily, he forgot about the arm thing. Then we pulled up to the school.

We got to the main office right before it was going to close, but the receptionist was a friend of mine, and let us do our business.

"What's your name, son?"

"Crass… Fisheye"

"Alright, where do you live?"

"Well, I'll have to explain that" I told her about his situation, and got him in. He had to take a test to see where he stood, and I waited for him while he took it.

"So, Mr. Gordon (our principle), how'd he do?"

"Well… Mr. Crass here is an exceptional student. It seems he won't need any math or science courses. Just History, English and electives."

"What?! He doesn't have to suffer through math or science with me? No fair…"

"Well, since you're the only one he knows, we put him in all the classes you're in, except the math and science. We'll let him choose electives to take their places" he took him to his room, and they decided what classes he would have. When they were done, it was decided that he would take Cooking and Electronics.

"Well, now that that's done, you can meet my parents" I said to him. He started walking to my car.

"Amy…"

"Yes?"

"How come you're not holding my arm this time?"

"Umm… it's not that important."

"Oh. Well, I liked it" he said, and continued to walk with me. So it took his arm. Hey you cant blame me… he was really cute, and he sounded so innocent when he said that. It was then that I noticed the patch on his hand. It was gold, and had the shape of an arrowhead, and had one of the symbols that were on the overall he had.

"Hey, what's that?" I pointed out to him

"Um… I don't know."

"That's what I figured…" We got to my car, and we went home

***

"Mom! Dad! We're home!" I yelled when we got home. Our home is quite large, so you have to yell to be heard.

"Hello dear" said my mom. "And hello to you young man" she said to Crass with a big smile on her face. This seemed to scare him, so he cowered behind me.

"Um… h-h-hello…" he managed to say.

"So this is the young man that you found?" said my dad, coming from behind my mother. He wrapped his arms around her, and she put her arms over his. I know my parents love each other a lot. I've never seen them fight before, and I don't think I ever will. Its as if they were made for each other. I guess that's rubbed off on me. We've never really fought before. The only time we did was when they tried to get me to date this weird guy from our school. That guy still tries to hit on me… But I still love my parents to death, and find it hard to be mad at them for too long.

"Daddy, is it okay if Crass and I go to the Zoid match tomorrow?" I asked as nice as possible.

"Well, tomorrow is a Saturday, so I guess it's alright."

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" I said and hugged him and mom. (He's never let me go to one of those, since he thought it was too dangerous.)

"Well, you two should go to bed now, it's getting late, and you'll have to get up early to go to the match on time" said mom.

"Alright, thanks again mom and dad!" I said, and hugged them again. I tried to get Crass to come with me, but he was messing around with a really old grandfather clock we had. It hadn't worked for years, and no one could fix it, so it just stayed there, one minute away from 10 o'clock. When he was finally done, I dragged Crass upstairs, and showed him to his room. A minute later, the Grandfather clock chimed.

"You can sleep here until your memory comes back to you." I said. But he was already asleep by then. He fell asleep so fast, he didn't have his blanket on, and so I put it on for him. Then I looked at him; he was so lovable! After my dreamy gaze wore off, I realized that I would have to get up early, and went to bed.

***

CHOAM repair status…45% complete. Status of Crass… no immediate threat. Location… 25E45W at 5 clicks. Within reaction range… Power levels… 80% and rising. Cloak…optimal. Shields…70% and rising. Weapons… optimal. Possible location of Xi'an pilot…UNCONFIRMED. Launching probes. 

***

I woke up to a beautiful morning, with the warm sun's rays on my face. I got up and stretched a bit, and looked at the clock; 9:45. 9:45! The match is in two hours, and that's how long it takes to drive there! I rushed out of bed and used the bathroom. Then I ran to Crass' room and was about to wake him up, when I saw the patch on his hand. It was glowing, and there seemed to be some kind of writing moving around on it. I was about to touch it, when all of a sudden his hand grabbed mine. _Hard_. At first it hurt, but then he loosened his grip. What was weird was that he didn't seem to be awake _until_ he loosened his grip. He opened his eyes, and had this dreamy look on his face. I retracted my hand, and rubbed it to ease the already fainting pain. I'd never noticed it until now, but he had bright aquamarine eyes. Wait… they were turning green! I was about to scream, but then he got up.

"Good…morn…ing…" he said slowly. It was as if his mind was somewhere else.

"Good morning" I said in a trance. His eyes were slowly taking control of me. Finally, I got out of it. I snapped back to reality, and said: "Common! We gotta hurry, go use the bathroom, and get changed!" Thank God he knew how to use the bathroom. And he still remembered how to wear clothes, so I went off to change. Then we ran downstairs and to my car.

"Dear, what about breakfast?" my mom called out.

"We'll get a bite to eat mom! We're late!" I said, and went to my car. The drive lasted two hours, but Crass didn't seem bored. It was as if he's never seen a planet before. I stopped at a normally fast-food joint that had a fast pick-up service, and got something to eat on the run. We finally arrived, and I managed to somehow get some okay seats. Well… they were all the way at the top, and we were the only ones there.

"Amy?"

"Yes Crass"

"Why are we up here?"

"Because we came late"

"Is this some form of punishment?" I was about to say no, but that match was about to start, and I wanted to watch it.

"Yes"

"Your people have some strange ways"

"I know…" then the match started. The Judge landed, and said his speech, saying that it was the Blitz team versus the Dino team. The Blitz team had the Shadow Fox, Gun Sniper, and Liger 0 Panzer. The Dino team had the Gogulas, Gun Sniper, and Rev Raptor.

"Battle set. Ready… fight!" said the Judge, officially starting the match.

The Shadow Fox, both Gun Snipers, and Rev Raptor charged at each other. The Liger and Gogulas stayed back. The Gun Snipers fought each other, and the Shadow Fox fought the Rev Raptor. A black cloud suddenly surrounded the Rev Raptor, and all of a sudden, the sound of metal being sliced could be heard. Then the Shadow Fox leaped out of the cloud, and ran towards the Gun Snipers.

The Black Gun Sniper just kept on shooting all its ammo at the green one. Then it seemed to be out of ammo, and started running away to their base. The green one took the chance and started shooting it down, and scored a lot of hits on its legs. The black Gun Sniper fell over, and couldn't move. With its victory, the green Gun Sniper was about to go after the Liger, but it was engulfed in a cloud of back smoke. Then the sound of metal being sliced could be heard, and the Shadow Fox came running out, and headed to the Gogulas. Unfortunately for it, the Gogulas saw that in advance, and picked it off with one of its CPC's. The Shadow Fox lost two legs on its left.

The only ones left were the Gogulas and Liger now. They just stood there for some time, maybe talking to each other. Then they charged up their twin cannons, and fired them. The two emissions smashed into each other, and they joined into a swirling mass of energy. Then it exploded, and beams of energy came out in two directions, one away from us, and one right at us! I screamed, and held onto Crass' arm, and started crying, and scolded myself for never listening to my dad about this. The beam hit us.

***

CHOAM repair status…47% complete. Status of Crass… threat detected! Initiating HES. Initiating energy shield.

***

I had my eyes closed the whole time, and then started getting impatient. Then I felt a lot of shaking, then nothing, and then my feet touched the ground. _Wait a second. I'm supposed to be dead right now. What's going on?_ I looked at Crass, and he was standing upright, supporting me, and looked like nothing had just happened to us; and he had this weird look on his face. I looked to where we were just sitting, and saw a BIG hole. Then a crowd of people surrounded us, and kept on asking how we survived. All I could say was "I don't know…"

The match was cancelled, and the pilots of both Zoids came up to us to apologize, but had the same question: How did we survive? I got sick of all the questions, and said it was an act of God. Then we went to my car and went home. Hopefully it wouldn't get on the news.

We got back home at around 9, and I was very tired, so I went to bed. But I heard dad talking to Crass.

"So, how did you manage to fix the clock?"

"Oh, I just did this"

"I see! Why didn't I think of that?"

"I dunno…"

"Can you see if you can fix something else for me?"

"Sure" and that was the last thing I heard from them. 

***

Next morning, I woke up nice and early. It was about six in the morning. I had told Crass earlier that we would go to the beach today, and I had already bought something for him to wear the other day. I got dressed, and went to his room to wake him up.

"Crass…"

"Ugh…" he opened his eyes and they were red, as if he stayed up all night or something.

"Did my dad keep you up too late?"

"I stayed up till five fixing that hovercraft of his" he said

"You what?!" I said, pissed off at my dad for keeping him up so late, and amazed that he got that old thing to work. It was a custom made vehicle that my grandfather made when I was a little baby. My parents say that he'd take me on rides with it, but it broke down the day he died, and no one could ever fix it.

"So… did you manage to fix it?" I said.

"Ya, I even made a thing your car could pull it with so we can take it to the beach.

"Really? Cool! But lets go now so we can get a good spot." I got the rest of the stuff we would bring with us, while Crass rigged the hovercraft to my car. When we were done, we got into our beach clothes, and headed to the beach. I was in a nice and comfortable neon yellow swimsuit, and he was in a pair of baby blue swim shorts. I couldn't help but blush when I first saw him in it. He just had that dumbstruck stare on his face.

"Don't come too late dear, you have school tomorrow" said my mom as we left.

"We won't!" I said, and we left.

***

It took about half an hour to reach the beach, but we didn't have any problems. All Crass did was sleep the whole time. _That's what you get for sleeping for an hour…_

When we got there, the ocean amazed him, even though it took a few nudges/slaps to wake him up. It seemed to me that he had never seen it in his life. _Well, if someone had amnesia maybe they wouldn't remember it? _

We unpacked, and set up our little camp near the water. Then I heard a few familiar voices.

"Hey Amy!" said one of my friends.

"Hi July!" I called back. She was with her boy friend, Ron.

"Who's that?" she pointed to Crass.

"His name is Crass" I said.

"Is he your boyfriend?" I was about to say no, but then I saw Matt and his gang trailing after her.

"Um… yes, yes he is, aren't you Crass?"

"Yes" he said, as naturally as any normal boyfriend would. Then he wrapped his arms around me. I was about to punch him in the face, but I remembered that he was supposed to be my boyfriend, and then he whispered something to me. "This is what I saw your parents do in that picture when your dad said that he was her boy friend." 

"Oh" I whispered back. _He learns quickly. Maybe too quickly… I think he's enjoying this too much._

"Well, Crass, how bout a quick swim?" said Matt, obviously jealous of my new "boyfriend"

"What does that mean?" Crass asked me. If he doesn't know what it means, he probably doesn't know how to do it.

"Well, he doesn't know how" I said. All the guys laughed at this.

"Actually, I think I do" said Crass.

"What do you mean?" I whispered to him. He pointed to a bunch of people swimming in the ocean

"Well, at least you know what it means" I whispered again. "Well, he just hasn't done it in a while, let him have a warm up first."

"Okay" said Matt.

We got on the hovercraft, and I chose a place to teach him how to swim. We drove it there, and we both went in. At first, I had to hold him up, but it seemed like he could do it himself; so I let him go. I swam away from him, so he would come to me.

"Amy! I don't think I can do it" he said.

"Of course you can you big baby" I said playfully. He started thrashing, but I still thought he could make it; I was so wrong. The thrashing stopped, but he suddenly went under. I frantically swam to where he was, but he had gone too deep by the time I reached there.

***

CHOAM repair status…74% complete. Status of Crass… threat detected! Initiating HES. Initiating aquatic mode.

***

_Oh no!_ I thought. _I just killed someone I was responsible for._ I was on the verge of tears, but then I felt someone wrap his arms around me. I looked back and it was Crass.

"You idiot! I thought you drowned!" I said, and slugged him in his chest; I managed to hold back my tears, working off my anger.

"I'm sorry. But I just learned how to swim while I was underwater, and then I saw you all sad, so I was trying to comfort you."

"Well… just don't do something like that again." I said. Satisfied that Crass could swim, we went back to the shore.

"Is he ready?" said Matt impatiently.

"Yes" I said

"He can talk for himself, can't he?

"Yes" said Crass.

"All right, we start here, go up to the reef, swim through the shelf, and come back here. The rules are simple: first one back wins" said Matt. The people that were going to swim were Matt, Ron, Tim, Eric, and obviously, Crass.

"On your mark, get set, go!" said the girl Matt came with. Everyone had a good start, and everyone reached the reef at the same time. I'm not sure what happened when they got there, but everyone but Crass made it out of there. When Crass finally did get out, everyone was at the shelf. Then the most unexpected thing happened. Crass started swimming like mad, and beat everyone. By the time the other boys were halfway between the shelf and the shore, Crass was walking up to me. Everyone stared in amazement, while I beamed like a mother who's child had accomplished something great.

When the rest of the guys came up, I gave them a piece of my mind, thinking that they did something to him at the reef.

"I bet you guys tried to cheat, just so you could beat Crass." I said.

"No we didn't" said Matt. "If anyone cheated, it was your boyfriend. Who can swim that fast?"

"Why you little" I was about to smack him in the face, but Crass caught my arm.

"They didn't cheat" said Crass. "I was just seeing how this fish swam" and showed me a squid.

"Ekk!" I screamed, and ran away. Like the numbskull he was, he kept following me with the squid outstretched in his hand, telling me how and why it was such a fast swimmer. Everyone just laughed, and we had a great time for the rest of the day. But I could tell that the girls were jealous about Crass, and the guys felt intimidated by him. Good thing they didn't know how innocent he was, or they might have taken advantage of him.

At sunset, almost everyone left, but we stayed, and had a walk on the beach. We were holding hands as if we were a real couple, and I was starting to get used to it. And Crass didn't seem as shy as he was when we first met. _Too bad it'll be all over when he gets his memory back. What if he already has a girlfriend? Maybe a wife! No. Don't ruin the moment._ I was distracted by these thoughts, and I tripped on a rock I didn't see. 

"Oww!" I said as I fell on my face. Crass looked down at me with this huge smile on his face.

"Well… HELP ME UP!" I yelled, mad that he thought it was so funny. He held out a hand, and helped me up. When I put my whole weight on the foot I was tripped on, I felt this jolt go up my leg, and I moaned in pain.

"Are you all right?" he asked me.

"I think I sprained my ankle" I complained.

"Let me carry you then, I don't think its good to walk on a sprained ankle."

"Me too" I said, and he held me up like a baby. I don't know why, but I think I fell asleep on the way to the car. It was nice to be cradled in his arms. 

***

One, two… ya, just making sure. Well, that's my first girly chapter for this fic… sheesh… I scare myself sometimes…

Questions? Comments? Send them to yarft@yahoo.com 


	3. The New Kid

**Amy's First Kiss**

**Chapter Two: The New Kid**

By: Sci-Fi-Raptor

Disclaimer: I Don't own Zoids

***

Do you believe in life after love? (after love, after love, after love, after love…)  
I can feel something inside me say  
I really don't think you're strong enough (no)

-Cher (Believe)

***

I awoke with the sun on my face again, and the annoying alarm. _Ugh. Another day in school…_ _Hey, wait a minute; I was in the beach last time. How'd I get here?_ I went to the bathroom, and got changed. I could smell toast and eggs, and I was wondering how mom was up so early. I went to the kitchen, and it turned out to be Crass. _Did he? No, he can't… but what if he did?_

"Good morning" said Crass

"Um… good morning…" I said back.

"Help yourself" he said, and pointed to a plate of eggs and toast. _He can cook? I can't cook, and I don't have amnesia… that can't be good._ I slowly ate my breakfast, and then waited for Crass to finish. We were done, and went to my car to head to school. But there was no car…

"OMG! What happened to my car?" I screamed.

"Oh, its still back at the beach" he said in a natural way.

"Why is it still in the beach? Didn't you drive us back with it?" I said frantically

"Well, I didn't know how to drive your car, so I used the hovercraft" he said, and pointed to it.

"Daddy is sooooo gonna kill me" I said, and fell to my knees.

"Don't worry, we can go to school with the hovercraft, and go get your car back after school" he said.

"All right…" I said, still sure daddy was gonna kill me. We went into the hovercraft, and went to school. That day, we had all the same periods. English, History, lunch, Band, and flight simulation. I got him his locker, and we headed off to period one. I went up to Mr. Griffin, and told him about our new student while he waited outside.

"I see…" he said, and I went into my seat. "Well class, we have a new student it seems." Crass went into the room. "What's your name, son?"

"Crass… Fisheye" he said nervously.

"Well Mr. Fisheye, you can sit next to Miss Rose until you feel comfortable here" Mr. Griffin said.

"T-t-thank you" he said.

"Well class, isn't life full of surprises? We have Mr. Crass joining us, and we also have a pop quiz!"

"Ugh…" said the class in unison.

***

"Mr. Griffin gives such hard tests…" I said as Crass and I went to History. "But Mrs. Cho is an awesome teacher. You'll love her class" And we went through the same thing this time, but minus the pop quiz.

"So Crass, can you tell me who won in the battle of Jehovah's Hill?" asked Mrs. Cho.

"No" he said in a very tiny voice.

"Speak up Crass, old age has robbed my once keen ears from me" she said and put her hands on her hips, and shifted her weight to one leg.

"No, ma'am" he said a bit louder

"And why not?"

"Because I don't know…" he said weakly.

"Well, at least you're honest" she said with a smirk. "Well, since you are behind, I guess you can take this period to read the chapter during class."

"Okay" he said a bit more confidently.

"What was that?"

"Okay?"

"No fight? No squabbling?"

"Do you want me to?" said Crass. This made Mrs. Cho laugh.

"You know what Crass, you're a funny kid. Now go to the history center and read the chapter" she told him. I was about to say that I wanted to take him, but Anna Marie got to him first. I didn't trust her, and I wasn't sure if Crass was ready to meet people by himself, but I knew he would learn fast; it was a full fifteen minutes before she came back.

"Did you get lost Anna?"

"No ma'am" she said in a freaked out voice.

"Then what happened?"

"He didn't know what chapter we were on."

"And it took you 15 minutes to show him it?"

"No ma'am"

"Then what took you so long?"

"Um… bathroom?" she lied.

"All right Anna, I'll let you off the hook for now" she said. "But you better explain after class.

"Yes ma'am" she said, and took her seat. Then she sent a note to me that said: _Is he really in our grade?_ I nodded yes, and she looked dumbstruck.

Well class went by as usual, so when it was over I went to get Crass and take him to lunch. But he wasn't in the history center. So I looked around the school, and when I failed to find him, I went to the cafeteria hoping he had somehow found his way there. And when I went there, lo and behold, I found him sitting with my so-called girlfriends. They were all trying to steal him from me, that much I was sure of, but lucky for me, he had no idea what they were trying to do to him, so he just gave them weird looks when they tried to make a pass at him. So I went up to him and rescued him. First thing he did was hug me, and held me up in the air. That made me blush, but then he whispered in my ear "Thank you", and it explained why; he was at least a foot taller then I. I hugged him back, and from where I was, I stuck my tongue out at my friends, and took him to a table outside.

"Well, how was school so far?"

"English was easy." He said.

"What? That was one of the hardest tests he ever gave!"

"Well, maybe I got them all wrong then?"

"Okay, how about history."

"Well, I didn't understand the chapter the first time I read it, but after I read all the chapters before it, it started making a bit of sense"

"Oh, that's go… _you read all the chapters before it?_ HOW!" I said. We were on chapter 15, and there was no one that could read that fast.

"Well, I dunno, I just read." I couldn't believe him, so I quizzed him on all the other chapters, and he actually got them right. I was starting to get freaked out by him. But just to be sure he wasn't lying, I got another book that was just released that I just read. I told him to read it in front of me. What he did was so unreal; he just flipped through the pages like how you shuffle a deck of cards! Testes him real quick on random pages, and he actually got them! Maybe he was a super genius, and he was thinking so hard one day, that he got amnesia…

We finished out lunches (which mom packed the night before), and headed to the Band room when the period was over.

Mr. Kalman said that since I was a flute player, he should try it, so that I could help him. He tried it, but he really sucked. But he didn't know how to read music, so I got to spend the first half of the period teaching it to him. He caught on fast, and he could read music as easily as he read words (which is scary). But he still couldn't play the flute, and he gave up. Then he saw Matt playing the trumpet, and asked Mr. Kalman if he could try that. Mr. Kalman agreed after he saw how horrible he played the flute, and gave him a trumpet, and he rocked at it. He was so good, that Mr. Kalman put him in first chair; Bringing Matt down to second. That made me feel good about myself. 

This pissed off Matt, so when we were leaving, he tried to trip Crass. Instead, his foot got crushed, and Crass just kept on walking, as if he didn't notice a thing. Matt was on crutches for the next few days. Then we went to the computer room to try our hand at the flight simulation programs. Everyone was basically at the level of a Zabat, but Crass was so good, that he skipped the Zabat, Raynos _and_ Petras, and went straight to the Storm Sworder. Mrs. Matsumi said that with his skill, he could get a scholarship the aerial Zoid academy of his choice. All Crass did was laugh as he shot down another group of Zabats.

And that was his first day in school. I have to admit, though, that I was jealous that time I was all my "friends" were trying to steal him from me. But it's not like I like him or anything… really.

Well, we kept on going to school for the week, and nothing crazy happened, except for a few things. First of all, my car was totaled. It seems that someone wanted a new car radio… Second, Crass has been bringing all these crazy things home from school that he made during electronics class. Me dad seems to really be getting close to him, and they've been making a lot of cool stuff together. My mom likes him too, but isn't as close to him as daddy is. That, and I've had trouble being near him; I get all nervous. But I think any day now he's gonna get his memory back. But today is a Saturday, and I plan on going to the water park with him. And oh yeah, my girlfriends apologized for hitting on him, and for some strange reason are pressuring me to ask him out. I wonder what's their deal…

***

CHOAM repair status…89% complete. All systems optimal. Status of Crass… no immediate threat…

***

This time I wore this cute orange swimsuit I got last summer. He wore the same baby blue swim shorts. My face was red the whole ride to the park (my car was fixed by now).

When we reached the park we met up with my friends, who were on their way to the water slide, so we tagged along. We split up into guys and girls, and we talked among ourselves. I could hear Crass' voice, and then all the guys would laugh. I felt bad for him, since he was embarrassing himself, but knowing him, he probably had no idea what was going on.

"So Amy, are you two going steady yet?" said Cynthia.

"Um… no." I replied

"Why not?" said Melanie

"I don't like him like that" I said

"Yes you do" said everyone in unison

"No…"

"Oh come on. You always go goo goo when ever you're near him. And you even pretended to be his boyfriend when we first met him" (by now everyone had found out about his amnesia, and didn't hit on him anymore, but the guys for some reason became friends with him real quick)

"No! You girls have some issues"

"Then can I ask him out?"

"No!"

"See, I told you."

"I meant, why are you asking me? I'm not his mother or anything…"

"Sure"

"Really"

"What. Everrr" (ß that weird thing girls do). Then we all went on the slide, and we had a pretty good time the rest of the day. We all went home in a big caravan. A big caravan of newly waxed expensive cars. We got home around six. 

***

When we got to Amy's house, her dad was on the phone, and her mom looked worried.

"What's going on?" Amy asked her.

"Its those darned gangsters again. They say they're gonna do something bad if our town doesn't pay up."

"Why's dad talking to them?"

"Because they are making people pay one by one"

"Oh… those people are very dirty."

"Yes they are honey. Now go and wash up."

"Yes mom" said Amy, and we both washed up and got changed. That's when we felt it. 

"Mom!" Amy screamed. "What is that?"

"I don't know dear!" she replied, trying to stay calm. Everyone went outside, and we saw a Guysack outside.

"You better pay up old man" the pilot of the Guysack said from his loudspeaker.

"No way. Our town has told you time and again that we won't!"

"Then I guess I'll have to make an example of you then." It was unlocking its tail gun, readying it to fire. But right when it was about to fire, something shot it. We looked at the direction it came from, and saw a group of Saicurtis.

"Town guard" said Amy's dad, with a smirk on his face. The group quickly overtook the Guysack, and they were going in to capture it's pilot. But all of a sudden, they were being picked off by missiles. We looked in the direction of the missile source, and saw a group of Sinkers. The Saicurtis were quickly overtaken, since their ballistic weaponry were no match for the Sinkers' missiles.

***

CHOAM repair status…98% complete. All systems optimal. Status of Crass… Immediate threat detected… Engaging HES. Initiating medium assault platform. Threat does not need reinforcement.

***

The sinkers were heading for us. Then the weirdest thing happened. I saw Crass raise his hand, with the patch on it glowing red, and then these metallic scales started coming out of it and covering him. When they were done, he looked like a mix of an Iron Kong, Godos, and Salamander. He had the head and arms of an Iron Kong, the legs of a Godos, and the Wings of a Slamander. The rest of him was this black metallic stuff that looked like very heavy armor. He had these _huge_ guns on his legs, and things that looked like a pair of missile pods on his shoulder, with boosters attached to their bottom, and ovals that were on his wrists.

He went into the air, and he took his guns from his legs, and started blasting the Sinkers away. It took them a while to find him, but when they did, they locked onto him and launched their missiles at him. By now, half of them had been knocked out and he was shooting down most of their missiles. Some got close to him, but he skillfully dodged them. Then he went at full burn towards the Sinkers, and made their missiles hit them. By now, they'd had enough, and they rescued all of their fallen brothers, and got the hell out of here.

Then Crass fell into the ground, and his armor started turning into scales, and retracted into that patch on his arm, whose bright light eventually faded away. He was knocked out…

***

Questions? Comments? Send them to yarft@yahoo.com 


	4. The Desert Marauders

**Amy's First Kiss**

**Chapter Three: The Desert Marauders**

By: Sci-Fi-Raptor

Disclaimer: I Don't own Zoids

***

And you can't fight the tears that ain't coming  
Or the moment of truth in your lies  
When everything feels like the movies  
Yeah you bleed just to know you're alive

And I don't want the world to see me  
'Cause I don't think that they'd understand  
When everything's made to be broken  
I just want you to know who I am

-Goo Goo Dolls (Iris)

***

Later, in Crass' new room, Crass wakes up from being unconscious for sometime:

"Ow… my head hurts…" said Crass in a daze. When he could clearly see, he saw Amy's family hovering around him. (ß not hovering as in off the floor!)

"Do you remember what happened out there?" asked Amy

"No…"

"I figured…"

"Can we take a look at that patch?" asked Mr. Rose

"Ok…" said Crass. Mr. Rose carefully looked at it, and then started poking at it. Then he tried to take it off, since he found a solid part to it.

(view of outside of house) "AH!!!" screamed Crass in agony. (back to room) He quickly took his hand back from him. "What you do that for?" he said, while rubbing his hand.

"Well, that armor that you had seemed to come from that patch"

"I may have amnesia, but I'm stable enough to tell that that's ridiculous"

"But we all saw it. This armor came out of your patch and covered you, and then you kicked the Desert Marauders' asses!" said Amy

"Amy! Watch your language" said Mrs. Rose.

"Sorry mother" said Amy. "Hey he fell asleep again…" everyone's sweat dropped.

"Well, you've found quite a catch Amy" said her dad.

"Is that supposed to mean something?" 

"You two look so cute… I think I'll fix you two together." said her mom.

"Mom! I told you that kinda stuff is my business! And its not like I like him or anything" she said, and left the room with her nose held up high.

"Yes she does, she just won't admit it" her dad whispered to her mom

"Hey! I heard that!"

"Amy and Crass, sitting in a tree" they said

"Mom! Dad!"

"k.i.s.s.i.n.g…" they said much softer.

***

The next day I woke up to the sound of drills and wood being cut. I got up, yawned, stretched, walked past my new furniture and went into the bathroom. Wait… back track. New furniture? I don't remember daddy ordering any furniture. Wait… backtrack one more time: "woke up to the sound of drills and wood being cut." Oh no… did daddy make Crass stay up all night making new furniture? God… daddy can be such a…

I used the bathroom, and got changed. Then I went downstairs, and saw daddy building a table, and Crass standing next to him, telling him what to do. _At least he didn't make _him _do all the work._

"Good morning" I said to Crass with a smile. Then I looked at daddy pissed off. "Did you make poor Crass stay up all night working something again?"

"Nope. I started when he woke up. He taught me how to build all sorts of furniture in the first hour, and he's been watching over me while I was building them. So far we've spent about three hours together."

"What?! Only three hours? But you replaced all my furniture. How'd you do all that in three hours?"

"Actually its two hours Mrs. Smarty Pants. And I didn't refurbish only your room. I did the whole upstairs."

"What?!" I said, and ran upstairs and checked all the rooms. And true to his word, all the rooms had new furniture in them. I went downstairs with a dumbstruck look on my face.

"Should we tell her that we had some help?" Crass whispered to Mr. Rose, pointing at a receipt from a nearby furniture outlet.

"Maybe later. She looks funny like that…"

"Well dad," I said not hearing them "you've had Crass all morning. Not it's my turn"

"I knew you liked him!" he said.

"No I don't dad," she said in a death whisper "It's just that kids like us aren't supposed to be cooped up in one place for too long."

"Sure…" he said.

"Really!" I rebutted, but he was already going outside to fit the table he had just built himself (without help). Then Crass sobbed. "What's wrong?"

"It's demeaning when you're referred to as an object sometimes…" he said. All I did was laugh at him, and took him to my car. "We, my friend, are going to go to an Oxygen bar. I've heard that they make some things there that have given people their memory back."

***

The Oxygen bar was in another town, and it took us about two hours to reach it. For some reason, Amy seemed nervous and kept talking about her life when she was young. I didn't really mind, since some of the things that she said were pretty funny. She said that there was this time when she was on the swing and she swung so high, that she got thrown off her seat and landed a full ten feet away. She said that she cried for a while, and that she didn't go on swings for a few years. Eventually she got over it, and when she tried to swing again, the swing broke and she fell on her butt. She says she still swings now, but she says she does it with caution. Then I asked her what swinging was, and all she did was laugh. This distracted her a lot, and she went into the wrong lane. A truck was headed in our direction, so I turned the wheel, as she calls it, around so we would get out of its way. I got us in the right lane, and we didn't have to stop or slow down, but Amy blushed when that happened. It might be because I had accidentally put my hand on hers, so I apologized for doing that, but she said it was ok. Then I asked her if she was hot, since it was really sunny that day and she was still blushing and the roof was down, but she just shrugged it off, saying that I was a "very unique individual." She told me a few other accounts of her younger years, and we soon arrived at the town.

The Oxygen bar was huge. There was a lot of neon lighting and spotlights. I asked her if it was an important place, and she answered no, explaining that so many people came there that it made enough money to put on things like that. We went in, and she bought us two drinks. We sat at a lonely table in the side, and watched the show that was going on. I took a sip of the drink, and almost spit it out. She looked at me and smiled, giving me the usual look when I did something wrong.

***

CHOAM repair status…100% complete. All systems optimal. Status of Crass… CORE module spontaneously activating! Possible reasons: introduction of foreign chemicals. Chemicals do not appear to be threat.

Xi'an warrior located and bugged. Recalling probes.

***

"You're supposed to mix that in first" she said, pointing to these packets that were on the table. "All the things they make needs the oxygen crystals to be complete"

"Why don't they just put it in, in the first place?"

"Because the oxygen come out of the drink in about fifteen minutes, and it tastes nasty again, so if they put it in early, it would all be gone when you got it"

"That makes no sense…"

"I know, but they somehow figured it out so no one would be able to take their drinks home"

"But people could just take these packets home"

"They could, but they have this special beam, one that no one can copy, inside this room that keeps it in the state its in. So if you tried to leave the place, it would just turn into regular oxygen."

"Oh…" I said, still confused. "But how do _you_ know all this? You don't strike me as a person that would research things like that"

"Thanks a lot… but you're right. A friend of mine tried to copy their bar so he could sell it in school, but he found out everything I just told you. I was curious how his entrepreneurship was going one day, and he told me."

"Yeah, that makes sense…" I said. Then we finished our drinks and watched the rest of the show that was on. It was a comedian that was humorous… at least to everyone else. I didn't get any of the jokes he made. But then I heard something I did understand. I could hear two people talking, and I heard the name of Amy's town being mentioned.

"Yeah man, it was horrible. First we was winnin' then all of a sudden this guy starts flyin' and beats the crap out of us. I'm tellin' you man, it was so unreal…"

"Man, bull! No one believes you guys. You guys brought shame to the name Desert Marauders, and you're just looking for some excuse."

"I'm tellin' you man, there was this guy that just started flyin'!"

"Yeah, when I can bench a Gogulas. Well, the boss was outraged by you guys' woopin', so he sent in the squad to make an example of that town."

"Man… the boss never used those things. He's changed a lot since he hiked into the Aegean Mountains. Its so weird how all of a sudden he's been makin' good on the threats he made"

"Yeah… but don't question the boss man. He didn't get where he is by doin' stupid things. I guess he was just seein' who would pay and who wouldn't. He didn't tell the squad to raze the towns that paid their protection money, did he?"

"Yeah… I dunno what I was talking about…"

By that point, I had heard enough, and was sure that Amy's town was in real danger. I grabbed Amy by the arm and started walking us to the car, but she resisted.

"Crass, what are you doing? This guy just got to the good stuff"

"We have to go, _now_"

"What's gotten into you?"

"Can we please leave?" I pleaded.

"Well, when you ask like that…"

"Thank you!" I said and hugged her. Then I ran to the car, with her hand in mine.

***

"So, what got you so spooked that you dragged me out when the jokes started getting good?" she asked me a few minutes into the drive. I told her what I had heard. "So, who did you hear it from?"

"I heard these two guys on the other side of the room talking" She suddenly braked, crushing me under the seatbelt, and headed back to the bar. "What are you doing?" I asked a bit jumpy.

"There is no way, that anyone could hear a conversation from the other side of a room, especially with that much noise!" she said.

"But I know what I heard!" I said. 

"No you don't. You're probably under the influence of too much of their Oxygen. It's your first time, and you're prone to be delusional."

"No I'm not!" I said in a pissed off tone. It was the first time she ever heard it. She stopped the car and was about to lecture me, but I simply got out and started running towards her town. I looked back after a while, and saw her car still parked there. I thought about going back and apologizing, but I just kept on running with so many thoughts in my head. _Why am I so mad at her? And why wouldn't she believe me. And why do I feel so hurt for leaving her there? _I'm_ the one who's going to save her town, while she's gonna have the time of her life._

I ran for twenty minutes, and I was pooped. So I stood by the road, and did the thing I saw a hitchhiker do on the road when he was picked up. A lot of cars passed by, and no one stopped, so I started walking as I waited for a car to pull up. _At least I'm moving._

Then I heard a car pull up, and I turned to see if it was someone who would help me. When I saw the car, I recognized it from somewhere. I looked inside, and there was Amy; she looked like she had been crying for some time.

"Need a ride?" she said weakly. I got mad again, and started walking again, but stopped when I heard her sobbing. "Crass, I'm sorry alright" was all she could say. I took a few deep breaths, and went into her car. She put her arms around my neck, and started crying again. "I'm so sorry" was all she could say. I looked down at her and felt guilty for doing what I had done to her. _Since I was found, she's always been there for me. She took me into her house, and she tried to let me have a good time. How could I have acted like this to her?_ I put my arms around her to comfort her.

"I'm sorry too" I said. Then, I too started crying. We just sat there, crying together for some time. Eventually we settled down, but Amy still had tears flowing out of her eyes. She drove for some time until we entered her town, but she didn't say another word. Then she drove us to the police station, and we got out and went up to the station.

"How far did you really think you'd go on foot?" she said to me like I mother. I took some time to answer.

"I dunno…" I finally said.

"You could have gotten lost or worse…" she said, and the tears started streaming down her face again. I took her into my arms, and tried to calm her down.

"I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking clearly. It's just, whenever I'm near you, I feel so different…"

"Huh?" her sobbing lessened.

"I don't really know what came over me. It's just I don't want to see anything happen to your dad. But when you wouldn't believe me, I was so hurt that I couldn't stand listening to you being mad at me. I just had to get away. The truth is, Amy, I really, really like you…"

"What do you mean?" she said like she had just taken a blow.

"You've been a real good friend Amy… but for some time now, my heart has been acting funny whenever I get near you. And for some reason, I feel bad when I'm away from you. I don't know what that means, but…"

"Shhh" said Amy, and put a finger to my lips, as some kind of realization dawned upon her. I realized that she wasn't really listening to me then, but seemed to be overcome with something. Then she moved her face closer to mine. I was about to ask her what was happening, but I remembered that she told me stay quiet, and I had this feeling inside of me that felt good.

***

CHOAM repair status…100% complete. All systems optimal. Status of Crass… Immediate threat detected… Engaging HES. Initiating heavy assault platform. Threat requires reinforcement. ETA to Crass… 4 minutes.

***

We inched closer until: Boom! A bunch of explosions destroyed a few houses on the outskirt of the town. They were near Amy's house.

"Oh no! You were right, they are attacking" she said in exasperation. I was about to say "I told you so" but realized now wasn't the time. Then a missile came our way. Amy held onto me tightly as if this were the last time she would see me alive. I couldn't disagree. We braced for the impact we wouldn't survive, but just heard an explosion far away. And this strange feeling on my hand that just I briefly felt went away. We opened our eyes, and saw Amy's dad inside an Iron Kong, between us and where the missile was.

"Hey kids!" he said. A bunch of thoughts ran through Amy and her dumbfounded face, but all she could manage to say was "How?"

"We never got a chance to use our heavy artillery" was his answer.

"Oh" said Amy, and she calmed down. We looked at the place where the missiles came from, and saw a large group of Red Horns. They were skirmishing with the town's newly formed defense, which consisted of Godos, Command Wolfs, DiBisons, and Iron Kongs. Then Amy got alert and ran to her car, and dragged me with her. "We have to go somewhere safe" she said.

"What could possibly be safe?" I asked, aware that they had the much of the town surrounded.

"I know about this bunker nearby"

"Oh I said"

"Huh?"

"I meant Oh. The author screwed up"

"O…k." she said and put the pedal to the medal. We went to the main road, and headed out of town. We traveled for a few minutes, the battle raging behind us, and got to the city limits. I could see a bit farther then her, and I saw this fearsome looking Zoid in front of us. It was black, and looked like a T-rex. Its mouth was wide open, and there was a white ball of energy being collected in it.

"What's that?" I said

"What's what?"

"What's that?" I repeated, and pointed it out.

"Oh my ****ing GOD!" said Amy, and quickly headed the other way.

"What was that?" I asked, frightened by the reaction she had from it.

"That's a Berserk Führer, an imperial Zoid that's supposed to be at the bottom of the sea right now!"

"What's so bad about it?"

"You know that white energy you saw in its mouth?"

"Ya"

"That can level a whole city"

"What!?"

"I know, and I gotta tell our pilots to stop it before its done charging. Now I see what they were doing. They were trying to distract our guys so that it could get them while they weren't looking" said Amy. Then I heard a loud pop.

"Did you hear that?"

"Yes I did, and I hope its not what I think it is" said Amy. We both looked back and saw the CPC-emission heading straight toward us.

***

(Bird's eye view of town/battle site.) The Zabat's camera turned on. The town looked like a big circle with a few bright spots going off, which was on the east border of town where the fake battle was happening. A black dot all the way to the west, and it has a white ball of energy heading east of it.

The white dot grew into a line, and slowly made its way to the center of the big circle. Then everything, except the town's outskirts were destroyed in a big explosion that rippled from the center of the town. Blue and white waves of energy pushed anything in its way, and what wasn't hurled away was melted by the explosion's energy. Then, everything left got sucked in by the resulting vacuum, and got crushed at the center of the explosion. The only things left were the shells of former buildings, the aggressive Zoids on the east the lone Black Zoid on the west, and a single dot nearby the black dot.

***

The energy was headed straight at us, and I felt that there was nothing that I could do. It seemed Amy felt the same, so all we did was hold hands, and see each other's faces for the last precious seconds of our life; and that's when it happened. I felt the thing on my hand again, and looked at it to find it glowing brightly. Then something metallic was growing out of it. Amy gasped and told me that this had happened to me before indirectly, by telling me that "It's happening again!". Before either of us could say a word, the scales covered my whole body, and I was flying. Good thing that we were holding hands, because Amy would have been left behind, and gone forever… And that's when the second thing happened. As I tried to fly as high and fast as I could with the deadly explosion directly under me, and growing fast, I started remembering bits and pieces of what I once was. Memories of many people, a big blue planet, a white surfaced planet, and some kind of starship. All of it didn't register to me yet, but I knew that I had HES armor on me, and I knew how to use it. When the explosion cleared, I set down Amy on the remains of her house, and started going for the Red Horns.

***

"Commander, do you see that?" asked a Red Horn pilot.

"Yes," said the Geno Saurer pilot "and its heading straight for you guys. The scout group that came here last time mentioned something about a flying person, and it seems that they weren't lying. Take that thing out before it reaches you. I'll try to get there as fast as I can."

"Yes sir. All men, take that thing out!" said the Red Horn pilot. The UFO was still quite a distance away, so they locked onto it with their missiles, and fired. A hail of at least fifty missiles went after it. When the missiles got within combat range, they started doing crazy movements to keep the target from knowing where it would hit the target from, and therefore increase its chances of hitting. But the pilot was prepared, and confused the missiles, and made many of them crash. He didn't get rid of all of them, so he went towards the Red Horns at maximum speed (I think) and made the missiles hit one of the Red Horns by getting it between the UFO and the missiles. This effectively wiped out the Zoid, but there were many left, and they incessantly shot at him.

***

I remember using that on a training mission once. I never thought I'd ever use it back then, but now I know better. All that training I had to drag through was finally paying off. I knew this was the heaviest armor I had, and it had some of my most favorite weapons on it. My most favorite weapon that it had was the MPPC (Micro Particle Pulse Cannon), and when used, looked like someone shooting energy from his or her hands (like a kame hame ha wave). So I went high into the air, and charged up my attack, then shot it down at picked off a few of the Red Horns. I noticed the Geno Saurer getting closer, and made up my mind to take the rest out with my more efficient attacks. My lower arms started to glow, and they were covered by long energy slashers (like the alien guys from Star Craft). I dove arms first towards the ground, and went through a couple more of the Red Horns. When I lost my momentum, I went up to each Red Horn, and slashed up their leg joints, effectively making them useless. By this time the Geno Saurer had finally reached me, and hooked onto me by launching its hands at me while I was busy wasting another Red Horn. It pulled me up to the Zoid, and put me level with the pilot.

He had cold gray eyes, and had silver hair; his face was as hard as stone. When we looked eye to eye, I could see hatred in him. Then he threw me away and started shooting at me. Apparently he told his men to join in, and I was being pounded to missiles, lasers and ballistics. I was expecting that, and put my shield up. My only problem was, my shield was going down fast, and I was running out of energy. I could shoot at them while I was inside, but there were just too many of them. _Damn_. They burst my bubble (shield), and I was being hit directly now. All I could do was fly into the air, and try to avoid getting shot down. The problem was, they had locked onto me, and I was being hammered by missiles after missile.

All of a sudden, I was losing altitude and realized that my jetpack had gotten hit. I was going down, and fast; it seemed familiar. Then I crashed into the ground. I was dizzy at first, but slowly I got to my feet, brushing the dirt off my body, and the new wound to my head. I put my hand there, and saw blood trickling down my arm. It was getting a bit blurry, but I could tell that they were around me, closing in for the kill.

I got normal vision again; the adrenaline kicking in no doubt. I looked up, and saw dozens of smoking barrels were pointing at me, and I could see the end of laser targeters pointing at me. 

"No one messes with the Desert Marauders and gets away with it" said one of the Red Horn pilots. I closed my eyes, waiting for the hail of bullets that would end my life.

Tsk-Dfff. Boom! All of a sudden, all hell broke loose, and I wasn't dead! I looked at where the Red Horn that just said that to me was, but all that was left was its legs. I looked a bit away and saw the rest of the body strewn over the ground. Tsk-Dfff, Tsk-Dfff, Tsk-Dfff. I looked at the direction that the sound was coming from, and saw a cloud with three fresh holes in it; more bright blue/white balls of energy coming out of them. They were PPC emissions, and there was only one thing that they possibly could have come from. _CHOAM_.

By now, all the Marauders were giving everything they had to the cloud, and the cloud gave everything it had back, at least all its energy weapons. The Red Horns were being picked off one by one, their chassis not being strong enough to take the sheer force of a PPC emission. The cloud had dissipated by now, since all the explosions that CHOAM had taken forced the water molecules to disperse, and they could see its black metallic hull. It seemed that CHOAM intimidated them enough, and they started to disperse. When they were retreating, CHOAM decided to gun for the Geno Saurer. It scored at least 20 PPC emissions on it, but it still managed to get away with its boosters.

"Hostile environment eliminated. Disabling HES" said CHOAM to me with me CORE module link. It descended and let me board it.

"Status of mission" I ordered.

"Scout mission is a failure. New objective is to either eliminate Xi'an pilot, or keep at bay until the fleet arrives."

"Damn… did you locate the pilot?"

"Yes. He has been bugged, and is still being tracked."

"Oh man! I left Amy on that building. Before we do anything else, let me go get her"

"Location?"

"Don't worry, I'm switching to manual" I said, and flew the ship to where Amy was. I slowly landed next to her, and then got out. I slowly walked up to her, and stood in front of her. I looked her in the eyes, and I could tell she was crying. She finally realized it was I in front of her.

"They killed them all!" she said, and started crying again. I could tell that she was really hurt; she lost everything that she once loved. I went up to her, and wrapped my arms around her. She held onto me, and buried her face into my chest. I just stood there, trying to comfort her and let her cry.

***

Questions? Comments? Send them to yarft@yahoo.com 


	5. Ready… Fight!

**Amy's First Kiss**

**Chapter Four: Ready… Fight!**

By: Sci-Fi-Raptor

Disclaimer: I Don't own Zoids

***

I want to heal  
I want to feel  
What I thought was never real  
I want to let go of the pain I've held so long  
[Erase all the pain 'til it's gone]  
It's gone]  
I want to heal  
I want to feel  
Like I'm close to something real  
I want to find something I've wanted all along  
Somewhere I Belong

-Linkin Park (Somewhere I Belong)

***

There was nothing I could do for her. She was very depressed, and she had nowhere to go. So I decided to let her stay with me until I could find a place that would take her in. She wasn't talking and there was no way for me to find out where any of her relatives lived.

On a lighter note, I have my memory back, at least what I need to go on with this mission. Older memories are a bit fuzzy, but at least they're still there. But I know sooner or later, Amy will get out of her depression and start asking questions.

"CHOAM, where were we on our mission briefing?" I asked it. Amy was in the room. She had been there ever since she boarded my ship, and just lay on the couch quietly. No doubt crying inside herself. She was facing me, but I could tell she wasn't seeing any of this.

"I was about to show you what disguise the Xi'an operative is currently using" it said, and showed it on the screen. Then it continued to say the rest of the mission status. "Operation has lasted 195 hours, and the mission will end in 1305 hours" it said more information, but I stopped listening.

"Wait a minute… I think I've seen him" I said. _Yes, I did see him. He's the guy from the Geno Saurer._ This got Amy's attention. She got up, and took a closer look, and her face grew dark.

"That's the bastard! He's the one that destroyed my town!" she said angrily, and started crying again. I took Amy into my arms, and tried to sooth her.

"Clam down. Everything will be all right. We'll get him" She pushed my away, and ceased crying. She gave me a dark look and had an angry face again, even though her face was moist with tears.

"How can you? He has the backing of all the Desert Marauders and a lot of stolen blood money to boot"

"I can, because that's my mission" I said. That was something I would regret saying for some time.

"Your mission? You got your memory back?"

"Yeah, while I was fighting those Zoids today"

"Tell me what you are then, you owe me that much" she said. She lost her bad mood, and seemed happy again; she had the life in her eyes again.

"My mission… ya, I was sent here to aaaa… capture or destroy that guy"

"So you're like a secret agent or something?"

"Ya… I was supposed to watch him, but he attacked me before I could foil his plans, and then you found me. It seems I was too late, so I have to contain him as much as I can until my backup arrives" I told her. It was mostly true. I was supposed to watch and contain him, and he did attack me right before I got knocked out.

"I can help you then, you just have to let me! That guy killed my family and I have the right to get my revenge" she demanded. I felt bad for her, but I didn't want to see her get hurt.

"No. It's too dangerous"

"What? You have to!" she bickered. 

"No I don't, and I won't. I should just drop you off at the next town and let you find your own family if you're gonna act like that"

"Argggg" she fumed in rage. But then she drastically calmed down and had a suspicious look on her face. She walked up to me in a weird way, and started touching me. "If you let me come with you, I'll make it worth your while…"

"What do you mean by that?" I said, uncomfortable with her so near me. She started walking to one of the sleeping quarters, and gestured for me to follow. I followed her, not expecting the trap I was about to fall for. She came up behind me and threw me on the bed…

***

At first I didn't remember a thing about last night, and I woke up with something warm near me. I was a bit cold, so I snuggled up to it. It was warm and soft, but it still felt good. _What could possibly be warm and squishy next to me in my bed the night after Amy seduced me into letting her tag along… _I thought, remembering bits and pieces of the night before. I opened my eyes, and saw something I didn't expect… a soft plastic cylinder with something inside of it. _Now, how the hell did she get that?_ She had somehow found my "Hug-me-at-night", which consisted of a thin polymer lining holding in a polymer-based fluid (like goop), with a heater inside. _She's clever._

I got up and did my business, and went to the kitchen area. I found her sleeping on the table, in the same clothes she was in yesterday. _She must have been really angry with them for destroying her town… I mean she even seduced me to get a piece of them._

"Good morning sleepy-head" I said to her ear quietly.

"But I don't wanna go to school today" she instinctively replied. _At least she woke up normal._

I started brewing some coffee, and the aroma probably woke her up. She sat up, and looked like a mess; as if she hadn't slept in a long while. It may have actually been the case; she probably snuck out early in the night and contemplated her situation, and probably fell asleep not too long ago. She got up, yawned and stretched a bit, and went to the bathroom. She came out a few minutes later, and looked a bit more awake.

"So, when are we going after him?" she said.

"You that eager to get womped?" She nodded her head. "Fine be like that. But I'm gonna track him down first, and then try to figure out what's the best way to get him with the least attention"

"But that'll take too long! We should just find him and blow him up"

"You may want to do that, but I don't" I said to her. "CHOAM, where is the Xi'an pilot, and what is he up to"

"Analysis of local news stations suggests that he has entered what is know as a Zoid tournament. The winner is to receive 10,000,000 of this region's currency, and an interview in a TV show."

"What could he do with that?"

"He could build a replacement Home World beacon with the money, or try to carry out his mission by trying to pull off something in the show" I contemplated CHOAM's analysis, and made a conclusion.

"I don't think he'll be able to pull off anything at the show, but I'm sure he'll try to build a beacon. All right, our new mission is to stop him from winning the tournament, and try to get rid of him in the process. But in the meanwhile, you try to make a beacon to call in the fleet, just in case he does somehow builds a beacon and calls in a Home World before NASAADSR realizes something is wrong with us."

"Affirmative"

"Now to handle you…"

"What were you just taking about? What do beacons and Home Worlds have to do with him?"

"Don't worry about it. But let me tell you some things you have to follow while you're in this ship. 1, you have to stay in all A rooms. All A rooms are blue, and have A facing towards them on all doors. 2, you have to get us into that tournament. 3, you have to listen to me if I tell you something. Anything else, you should be able to do, but you have to respect my authority if I tell you not to do something"

"And why can't I move around the ship? The only blue rooms I have seen are this room, the room with the sky dome, and the sleeping quarters. I'll die of boredom!" she said annoyed.

"Well, you wanted it, so you got it" I replied.

"I wasn't this mean to you when I was taking care of you" she said to me as if I was the worst person in the world. That hurt me. I slowly went up to her, and held her face into my hands, forcing her to look into my eyes.

"I'm only doing it for your safety" I said. "If anything happened to you…" I tried to continue, but I couldn't talk anymore. Her face lightened up, and she looked like she understood.

"All right… but I get to be in a Zoid when we fight in the tournament!"

"Now look here…"

"Laaa laaa la la laa laaa" she hummed to herself and covered her ears. _Man, why do I think she's gonna end up killing the both of us?_ I tried a bit more to talk some sense into her, but she was too stubborn, so I had to succumb to her demands, but only because she threatened not to register us into the tournament.

***

She got us registered into the tournament quickly, and even managed to get me in without any problems. She used the destruction of her town as a gray area, since I was registered to go to school there, but I didn't have an address. But she also demanded to name our team.

"The what!"

"You heard me"

"But people are gonna thing we're pushovers with a name like that"

"If they think we suck, they'll be arrogant, and we can use that as an advantage."

"Still…" 

"Its been set in stone, and you can't change it."

"I wanna new team…"

"What's so horrible about the name Teletubbies?"

"It sounds so… stupid. It makes me think of us lowly, and I'm on the team!"

"God, its just a name. What's your deal?"

"How would you like it if I called you Jon?"

"That's a guy's name! What's the connection?"

"That's the connection. You're giving us a girly name"

"What wrong with a girly name?"

"I'M NOT A GIRL!"

"I am"

"But you're not the leader!"

"According to the ZBC I am…"

"What?! You were supposed to make me leader!"

"Whoops…"

"Argh…"

"Hahaa…"

***

Back in CHOAM:

"So, what kind of Zoid do you want?" I asked her

I've always been a flyer" she said

"Zabat it is"

"What?! As team leader, I should have an intimidating Zoid, like a Storm Sworder"

"As team leader, you should reflect our name"

"Are you still bickering about that? It's just a name."

"Its just a Zoid…" there was truth in it. No matter what flying Zoid she thought she had, it was still going to be a Harrier with a hologram disguising it. 

"There's no talking to you…"

"Laaa laa la la laa laaa"

"Copy cat!"

***

The next day:

I woke up nice and early, and reloaded all the HEV's with fuel, ammunition, and life support (like oxygen). Then I let them charge. I went to CHOAM, and monitored its progress on the beacon. After a few hours, I heard Amy wake up, so I went up to the levels she was allowed on.

"Good morning."

"Morning…" she said drowsily.

"And I bet you couldn't sleep yesterday because you were so anxious about our fight today."

"Yeah"

"Alright Amy, our first battle is in three hours. We are going to fight a two-on-two battle against a team called the Saber team. They have a Saber Tiger, and a Great Saber."

"And what are we gonna have?"

"We'll have your Zabat, and my Iron Kong"

"Really? Well, can I practice on my Zabat?"

"Sure, just don't let it get to your head, because it's still _my_ Zoid, you just get to use it"

"Whateverr"

"Yeah… But let me warn you, it's a custom Zoid, so it has capabilities and controls that a normal Zabat doesn't have."

"That can't be good…"

"It can or can't. It's much more powerful than a regular Zabat, but the controls are much more advanced."

"Sure… lemme see it"

"Okay, just let me prep it" I took her out side where the bay was, left her there, and went inside. I gave the Harrier's computer what information it would need to make it look like a Zabat, and gave my Kodiak what information it would need to look like an Iron Kong. When I was done, I turned on the holograms, and put the other HEV's in dark places, so she couldn't see them. Then I opened the bay door.

"Took you long enou…" she started to say, but then stopped "Whoa. How big is that bay? And what are those other Zoids in there?"

"Don't worry about them" I told her, and brought the "Zoids" outside. I helped her into the Harrier's cockpit, and showed her how to use it. She caught on fast, and when I was sure she knew how to use it, I let her fly it. She had a rough start, but she quickly learned how to balance it and got it in the air quickly. Then she did some crazy stuff… probably the things that she wasn't allowed to do in the flight simulation class. But I was still better than her…

"Remember, you don't _have _to target anything, the computer will do it for you, and even shoot if you want. All you have to do is fly the thing" I told her. It wasn't completely accurate though; the computer was capable of flying the plane even if under attack. "Now for your first training mission" I told her. "Take out these energy shots" I fired a few PPC emissions into the air, and let her try and intercept them.

"Are you crazy?" she whined. "Those things are too fast for me!"

"Well, that's what you'll have to deal with in real combat, so I advise you to do as you're told"

"You're nuts…" was all she said, but tried to gun them down. At first she tried doing it manually but realized she would never do it, so she got the computer to do it. The computer took it out with deadly accuracy. "Cool"

"Next, take out this volley of missiles that will be trying to take you out" I locked a group of LMR's at her, and fired. I was hoping that she would learn from her last lesson, and let the computer do the work; she did. She dodged the missiles while the computer took them out.

"That's great! I guess all you really have to do now is get a feel for it while we wait for the other team"

"Sure. This is definitely one of the coolest Zabats I have ever flown!" 

"It's the only Zabat you've flown."

"So? Its still cool" I let her fly for a while, and then told her to land, so she could be refueled and reloaded twenty minutes before the battle. Ten minutes before the battle, I saw a red Whale King land a few miles away. Then the Judge landed, and did his thing.

"…Battle field set up. Teletubbies team versus the Saber team. Ready… fight!"

The second the judge said fight, the Saber Tiger fired its twin 30mm Cannons at me, and the Great Saber fired its mortars at me. I had the slick idea of turning my cloak on so they thought they took me out, and I did. They waited for the smoke to clear, and found me gone, so I think they assumed I was out of the match. Then they went after Amy. The Great Saber started running, and activated its flight pack, and chased after Amy. The Saber Tiger stayed on the ground, and tried to shoot Amy down with its various guns. Since the Great Saber was flying too close to Amy, it didn't want to endanger itself by using its guns, so it tried to use its claws instead. So it charged after her, and tried to tear her apart, while the Saber Tiger was reloading its weapons. Amy remembered her training from a few hours before, so she let the computer target the Great Saber while she tried to doge both of their fire. Unfortunately for her, the Saber Fang was too far away for the computer to accurately shoot, and the Great Saber was too close and too maneuverable to shoot at. She was basically wasting her energy and ammo.

"Dammit Crass! You suck!" was what I heard her say over the intercom. I figured Amy had had enough, so I took this as my cue to step in. I targeted the Great Saber with my LRM's, and fired a long stream of them at it. Then I targeted the Saber Tiger, and let loose a relentless volley of PPC emissions and Guass rifle rounds. The Great Saber didn't expect the strike, and got hit hard on its rear, and came crashing down when one of the LRM's crashed into its flight pack and destroyed it. The Saber Tiger noticed me firing the LRM's, so it was ready for me when I fired my PPC's and Gauss rifle at it.

"What the hell, I thought we got rid of you!" he said, while he tried to dodge all the shots. He moved left and right, while trying to get closer to me. I countered by shooting my PPC's right in front of its path, so it would have to stop or get hurt by the PPC emission's explosion.

"So…" I said, and continued firing at it. At this point Amy realized that they weren't shooting at her, and shot at the Saber Tiger from the back with her own PPC's.

"No fair!" said the Saber Tiger pilot.

"How do you think I felt!" rebutted Amy. That small second of communication was just the distraction I needed, so I fired my LB-X Autocannon at it. The rounds spread apart, and shattered the armor of a whole section of its body. I took advantage of this by firing a Gauss Rifle round at the new hole, and destroyed its internal circuitry.

"Battle over. The winner is… the Teletubbies team…" said the judge, registered the win to the ZBC, and went back to the judge satellite.

"How did we lose to a team called the Teletubbies…" said the Great Saber's pilot.

"Why did we have to be called the Teletubbies…" I said.

"I still don't get it…" said the Saber Tiger's pilot.

"Look at it this way, WE KICKED YOUR AZZ!" said Amy.

***

Back in CHOAM's cabin:

"Man you're vicious…" I told Amy. I found out how much damage was done to the enemy Zoids, and I seems that I hadn't taken out the Saber Tiger. Even though I had ripped a hole into the Tiger, and annihilated its insides, it was knocked out way before I had fired my LB-X Autocannon. After I had made the Saber Tiger stop in it tracks, Amy fired at least 15 PPC emissions at the Zoid, and force of all the emissions crushed that side of the Zoid, as if an Ultrasaurus had stepped on it. 

"I just had some emotions bottled up inside"

"At least you're on my side…" I said. 

"Aren't you glad you let me in?"

"I dunno…" I said teasingly. She replied with a disappointed look. But the truth is, I was glad she was there; it gets pretty lonely when you're all by yourself with only an AI to talk to. "Well, it'll be about a week until we have our next match, so we might as well try to collect as much information as possible on the Xi'an pilot."

"Alright, I'll go check out what team he's part of, and what Zoids he's using."

"Ok, and I'll go see how CHOAM is handling its part"

"What about the Zoids?" she asked.

"What about them?" I replied.

"When are you gonna get them fixed?"

"What? Oh. Don't worry about it. CHOAM can automatically fix them."

"Really? Cool…" she said, and went to her quarters, where she would use a computer to find out the information through the nET. I stood there alone, and then started acting normally.

"CHOAM, how long has our mission lasted?"

"It has lasted about 244 hours. 1256 hours until end of mission"

"How far have you gone with the beacon?"

"It is 12% complete"

"Once it's complete, how long will it take Lunar Base 001 to receive the transmission?"

"I cannot give an exact estimate, but it should take one to two weeks for them to receive the signal."

"Well, its better than waiting the two months… when do you think the Xi'an pilot will call a Home World?"

"If he wins the tournament, he will immediately have the resources to call in a Home World. But if he does not, he will either have to gather his resources, or steal money and buy the parts."

"How long would it take for him to build it by stealing money or gathering resources?"

"It should take him at least a month by gathering resources, but I cannot estimate how long it would take him by stealing money. Most likely, he will do a combination of both, gathering easy to get resources, and buying harder to get resources."

"Great…" I said. I had no idea how long I had until this world may get blown up, and maybe me with it. "Can you send a spy drone to the Xi'an's base, just to keep an eye on him?"

"I can send all four if you wish"

"No, only send two. We night need the other ones"

***

"Okay CHOAM, get me into the nET" I said to CHOAM.

"Accessing…" It connected.

"That's good. Now look up any team called the Desert Marauders."

"Searching…" It found a huge list with teams called Desert Marauders.

"Damn. Lets see… search for a team called the Desert Marauders, but also look for a guy named Joe Black."

"Searching…" It found one hit, a newly formed team called the Desert Marauders. Its leader was Joe Black, and they had not been eliminated from the tournament yet. "This is good. Print it."

"Printing…" A thin, but not flimsy piece of paper-like material came out with all the information on it. Amy took it, and went to Crass.

***

Over the next two weeks, Crass and Amy plowed through the preliminaries. On the third week, they went to the finals, and guess who ended up fighting each other for the tournament? The Desert Marauders, the Teletubbies team, the Hell Fighter Squadron, and the Blitz team. The winner of the tournament would be the last person standing at the end of the four-way battle royal, and he or she would win it for his or her team.

In CHOAM's cabin:

"Tomorrow is our last chance to stop Joe before he can get his money." I told Amy a few hours before the fight. "It's too bad we didn't get to fight him earlier on to make sure he'd lose"

"Yeah. But I guess now losing is not an option, and all we can do now is prepare"

"All right." I said. "I had CHOAM compile a list of each team's Zoids, the Zoid's and their pilots strengths, weaknesses, and habits." I gave her a printout of what CHOAM found, and quickly summarized it.

"So, We're still gonna use the Zabat and Iron Kong, the Desert Marauders are going to use a pair of Wardicks, the Hell Fighter Squadron will use a pair of Storm Sworders, and the Blitz team will use the Liger and Shadow Fox."

"Correct"

"You know, the Blitz team rings a bell…"

"One of the pilots that almost got us killed that day of that Zoid battle was a member of the Blitz team. He was also the pilot of the Liger."

"Oh yeah…" she said, and I regretted reminding her. She still never really got over losing her whole town (who could blame her) and when I reminded her of that day, she became this new cold Amy that had consumed the sweet innocent Amy I had used to know. But I think if this new Amy didn't exist, she probably would have killed herself by now. She was seriously depressed, but when I gave her the chance to get the Xi'an pilot back, she became somewhat normal again, but at a price. Like I said before, this new cold Amy consumed her. All the really thought about now was getting revenge on the Xi'an pilot. Once in a while, she'd forget about it, but the smallest reminder (like the one I just gave her) would make her revert to the cold Amy.

She went to where we had left our "Zoids", and started practicing. After our first battle, I put the Zoids in an auxiliary storage area, so Amy could freely had access to "her" "Zabat", and would never accidentally see my other HEV's.

"What is the beacon's status?" I said to CHOAM. CHOAM had built it, and sent a signal out to Lunar Base 001, but we didn't get a reply yet. And even if we did, it would take a week for them to send something back, or they would have to send someone over to extract us. But we specifically said that a Xi'an pilot had landed here, so most likely they would send the fleet here…

"No reply has been received yet, but I estimate that Lunar Base 001 would have received it an hour ago."

"Oh…" I said disappointed. If they had received the signal an hour ago, they would have sent a ship for us immediately. But they didn't, so most likely they were just replying to it.

***

10 minutes before battle:

We flew my Herculean X2 to a desert some distance away from us. We landed, got our Zoids prepped, and got outside quickly, no chatting what so ever. That's another thing about Amy that upsets me. Before she lost her town, she was always so talkative, and was cool to hang with. Now, she was intensely into doing whatever she could do make sure she'd get her revenge on the Xi'an pilot, and we rarely spoke. Whenever we did speak, it was about the Xi'an pilot, and it was as if I was talking to a stranger, and using politeness instead of saying what I really meant. I was getting lonely, even with CHOAM there with me. Life really sucks without Victor…

"Crass…"

"Yes Amy?"

"We haven't really talked in a while, have we?"

"We just talked about our battle plans"

"Yeah, but that was just for business. We haven't talked like friends do in a while"

"Yeah…" Silence.

"Crass?"

"Yeah?"

"I know I've changed a lot since we first met, but I just want you to know that you've been a really good friend to me, and I wont ever forget what you've done for me…"

"…Thanks." I finally said. I think she was about to say something else, but the Judge had arrived. It was a standard Judge capsule, but the Judge was a bit different. Instead of being white, the Judge was silver with gold lining; it also sounded feminine. Then all of a sudden, a few more Judge capsules landed nearby, but they were the regulars. I found out later that the silver/gold Judge was the main Judge, but because of the Battle Royal's complexity, the other Judges were jointly judging it with her. Even though the Judges had arrived, we couldn't see the other teams. It was because the battlefield was so huge, and since we were the farthest away from each other as possible (set up so we would be on the vertices of a square inscribed in a circle), we couldn't see each other. That's why everyone chose their fastest Zoids, if you wanted to be able to cover all that territory, just to fight someone, you had to be fast. And since everyone would be using fast Zoids, they would use a lot of fuel, so they had to let us refuel in the middle of the fighting.

"This is the 78th annual Masters' Tournament." The Silver Judge said. "The rules of this battle is simple; this is a four-way Battle Royal, and the last person, or persons if they are from the same teams, standing will win this tournament for his or her team. Once you have a command system freeze you are out, and it is unlawful to attack a Zoid that is out of the battle forty five seconds after it has been knocked out. You are also allowed to rearm in the middle of battle, but you do not have immunity, and are liable to be fired at. Any questions?" When no one responded it started the battle. "Ready… fight!"

***

Prepare to be stunned by the next chapter "Kiss of Death"

Questions? Comments? Send them to yarft@yahoo.com 


	6. Kiss of Death

**Amy's First Kiss**

**Chapter Five: Kiss of Death**

By: Sci-Fi-Raptor

Disclaimer: I Don't own Zoids

***

Circling your head contemplating everything you ever said

Now I know the truth I got a doubt

A different motive in your eyes and now I'm out

See you later

I see your fantasy you want to make a reality paved in gold

See inside, inside of our heads

Well that's all over we heard what you said

Back off we'll take you on

Headstrong to take on anyone

I know that you are wrong

This is not where you belong

-Trapt (Headstrong)

***

We really had no idea what to do, since we couldn't see everyone else, so we just headed to the middle. But I didn't like to go anywhere blind, so I told CHOAM to launch our satellite into orbit some time before the battle, that way we could see what was going on.

"CHOAM, patch me into the satellite"

"Accessing… link established"

"Good" I opened up the link, and told the satellite to track every Zoid in the tournament, including Amy's and mine. From what I saw, two teams were already fighting, the Desert Marauders, and the Hell Fighter Squadron. The Blitz team was just standing idle, and we were heading to the middle. "Hey Amy, head thirty degrees East."

"Why?"

"We're gonna fight the Blitz team"

"Why don't we go straight for the Desert Marauders?"

"Because they're busy, and they'll be easier to take out after they fight those Storm Sworders."

"Won't we be weaker after we fight the Blitz team?"

"No"

"Why not?"

"Because we have an advantage they don't"

"What's that?"

"You'll see"

We were still heading to the Blitz team, but slowly, so they couldn't see us coming. Since it was a long ride, I sat there and watched the fight between the Desert Marauders and Hell Fighter Squadron; it seemed that neither side would win. The Wardicks were mostly underground, and kept on going under ground after every time they attacked. The Storm Sworders were high enough to detect the firing, and were fast enough to dodge them. Then they would swoop down, and recklessly shoot where the Wardicks shot them from, but they would be underground before that, so it was basically a stalemate. After seeing this cycle a few times, Amy announced that she could see the Blitz team.

"Crass. I can see them!"

"Great… well lets make this quick."

"I dunno… the Liger 0 Jager is supposed to be really fast, and the Shadow Fox hard to keep track of."

"Well, they'll have no idea what hit them… you go after the Fox, I'll go after the Liger. But we're gonna do one thing different. Type in DVS into your computer."

"Why?"

"Just do it…"

"Ok" she typed it, and then she disappeared. Then I did the same, and I disappeared.

"Crass where'd you go?" Obviously she didn't know that we had both just cloaked.

"I'm still here. But we both cloaked. Now they'll have no idea what's about to happen."

"This is dirty…"

"I know" we slowly approached the two, so they wouldn't see us due to the environment (foot prints, etc…), until we were right next to them; well at least I was. Amy hovered on top of the Shadow Fox. 

"3, 2, 1" I said, and we both opened fired.

"What the hell?!" 

"Who's shooting us?"

"I don't know, I can't see them!"

"We should have listened to Jamie and gone to the middle"

"Yeah. Ahh" 

The Liger and Shadow Fox tried to get away from us, but we were on their tail, and shooting them. I kept up because I had installed a heavy jetpack to the Kodiak so it could hover and move faster. Amy kept on shooting the Shadow Fow with her PPC's, and I shot the Liger with my Autocannon. Then something weird happened. The Shadow Fox released a mist of black gas, and I couldn't see the two. 

"Where'd they go?" I said.

"They're probably inside the cloud" said Amy.

"Then lets bow it up!" I said, and fired a volley of PPC's into the cloud; so did Amy. The force of the PPC's explosion made the cloud dissipate, and we saw the Shadow Fox strewn over the ground.

"Where's the Liger?" I said.

"Behind you!" I heard Amy say.

"Strike Laser Claw!" I heard someone say. I turned on my shield, and felt an impact behind me. I turned around and saw the Liger trying to get back to its feet.

"What the heck… that should have destroyed you!" said the pilot.

"And the explosion from your Hybrid Cannon and that Gogulas' Charged Particle Cannon should have killed us.

"What? Wait… its you two?"

"Yeah" said Amy, and destroyed the rear part of the Liger with her PPC's, and LRM's.

"I must commend you for being able to attack me with my cloak on though…" I told the fallen warrior as Amy and I headed to the rest of the fighters.

"No!!! Liger!!! Speak to me!!!"

***

Before we went to battle the remaining teams, Amy and I went back to CHOAM to get refueled and refitted. After a quick tune-up, and repair, we were headed to the brawl.

"CHOAM, do I still have that link?"

"Affirmative"

"Good" I looked at the battle via the satellite. Everything was basically the same, except the two teams were scoring a few hits; the fatigue must have worn them out. And they were also just using their energy weapons; they must have run out of ammo.

"Amy, you take out the Storm Sworders, and I'll take out the Wardicks."

"Hey, I wanna be the one to take out Joe!"

"Don't worry. I'll knock out the other guy, and you can have him all to yourself."

"That's more like it"

Soon we arrived, and we had our cloaks on. Amy shadowed one of the Storm Sworders, and was waiting for one of the Wardicks to try and shoot it. That way, when she would shoot it down, everyone would think it was the Wardick, and she would still go undetected when she went after the other Storm Sworder. I decided that I would take out my Wardick when she would attack the Storm Sworder, since they would both be shooting at each other, and that would be the only time the Wardick would be "out of water".

We waited a bit, and then the Storm Sworder swooped down to try and get the Wardick. The Wardick came out, and fired a stream of lasers at the Storm Sworder, as it did the same; Amy and I took our cue. Amy fired her lasers at the Storm Sworder's thrusters, and I fired my Autocannon at the Wardicks boosters. We hit dead on, and our targets were knocked; the Storm Sworder was going down, and the Wardick was immobile. Then we focused on the remaining Storm Sworder. Amy shadowed it, like the previous one, and waited for me to fire my LRM's at it. When I did, she fired her PPC's at it, and the pterodactyl went down in a heap of burning metal. Then we searched for the last opponent, the Xi'an pilot's Wardick.

***

"CHOAM status report. All systems optimal. Warning! Fold space anomaly detected…"

***

_Where are you…_ I thought to myself. All of a sudden, the ground near me exploded, and the Wardick came flying out. It fired all its remaining weapons wildly in the air, and a stray shot hit Amy. Unfortunately for Amy, it was one of its powerful weapons, and it hit her thruster, so she was going down.

"No!!!" she said as she was losing altitude. Her seat was ejected, and she was floating down on a parachute right above the "Zabat". All of a sudden, the hologram started flickering, and then went dead; the Harrier had shown itself, but then it crashed. "What the hell was that thing?!" I heard Amy angrily demand over the intercom.

"I'll explain to you later" I replied.

"I know what is and isn't a Zabat, and I know that _that_ isn't a Zabat. I'm not even sure if it's a Zoid!"

By this time I had cut off communication with her, and was just looking/listening for the enemy Wardick to show itself. Then I noticed a slight rumbling. I looked at the Kodiak's feet, and saw the sand falling into the ground. I thought there was something weird about that, so I boosted into the air, and good thing too. Right when I got off the ground, the Wardick surfaced, and bit the air that I had just been standing on. I quickly locked onto it, and fired my PPC's and Autocannon. The momentum of the fire made me go up a few feet higher, and I saw the Wardick fall onto the ground in a heap.

I landed my Kodiak a good distance from the Wardick, and gave it everything I had; LRM's, PPC's, Autocannon, and heavy lasers. Explosion after explosion ripped the Wardick apart until all I could see was explosions and fire. I stopped firing until the smoke settled, and I could see the remnants of the Wardick. It had taken much damage, but the cockpit seemed intact. Then it seemed like it lost a blue tint, and all of a sudden, something shot out of the cockpit, and was heading straight for mine.

"Oh no you don't" I said to myself, and activated my deadliest HES mode, space combat mode. Blue-white-metallic scales came out of my CORE module until I was covered in a shiny blue/white overall. Then the jetpack, life support and weapons slithered to their positions. Finally, this clear, blue shield/crystal like thing went on my chest, and started to glow. I boosted out of my cockpit and collided with the Xi'an pilot.

"You humans are so ignorant… you and your ways will destroy the universe and the noble Xi'an will never allow it!" it said to me mentally.

"Us destroy the universe? You're the ones blowing up planets!" I replied right before we collided. We bounced away from each other, but went after each other again. We struggled with each other until we were holding hands and pushing each other; his psionic waves violently pulsating behind him, my jetpack brightly burning behind me.

"You humans are tampering with forces that you can never comprehend in your quest for military superiority!" it hissed to me in my mind.

"We're just trying to keep you from stamping us out of existence!" I rebutted.

"All you humans do is waste all the environments you encounter."

"And you kill everyone you encounter… including Amy and my friends!" I said. The reminder of all the people that he had killed in cold blood infuriated me, and I started pushing him even harder. Suddenly, his psionic waves couldn't match my boost, and I drove him into the ground, punching him many times and burying him deeper into the ground. He jumped out of my rage and started aiming psionic beams at me. I dodged them, and fired a volley of MPPC's at him. He couldn't dodge them, but blocked them all with a psioic wave. The explosion blinded me, and I lost track of him. The next time I could see, I saw his silhouette, and then I felt him punch my face. My helmet took the hit, but I was flung a few hundred meters by the psionically-enhanced punch, and crashed into the ground. I was dazed, but slowly got up. When I looked through my visor, I saw a huge circular crack where he most likely punched it. I turned and saw the smoldering remains of the fallen Harrier. _No one could have survived that. That bastard… he hilled Amy… he killed Amy!_ I forgot that Amy had actually ejected, but that didn't matter, this guy was going down.

The Xi'an was slowly approaching me. "You killed Amy! You damn murderer!" I said in a rage, and started firing everything I had at him, and flew in his direction at maximum velocity. We collided, and he was flung a few hundred meters away. I was about to go after him, but he emitted a quick pulse of psionic waves behind him, and stopped. Then he charged at me. I tried to shoot him down with my MPPC's, but he just took the hits and continued his assault. As he was about to hit me, I braced myself, and fired a burst of thruster behind me to keep me from being flung again. He crashed into me, and we just stayed in the same position, our momentums canceling out. Then he disappeared, and I felt something above me hit me hard, and I was crashing into the ground.

I tried to stand up, but I was too dizzy. I finally got up, but my head was spinning. When things looked normal, I saw the Xi'an pilot aiming his hand at me, a bright ball of light in front of it. I couldn't see the crack on my visor, so I assumed that it had shattered from the impact. It was affirmed, when I could feel a stinging sensation all over my face, and I could smell blood. "Die human…" he said, and then he exploded. _No wait, that's not right._ I rewound my mind, and saw a MPPC hitting him from the side, and then it exploded and made him fly away.

I looked at the direction the MPPC had hit him from, and there I saw Amy with a MPPC bazooka on her shoulder. "Hey Crass!" she waved to me. I smiled weakly at her, but she gasped. I guess she noticed my bloody face; she started running towards me.

"Crass, are you all right?" she said in a scared voice.

"Tis' only a scratch." I said and waved it off.

"You stupid idiot…" she started saying, but started crying mid-sentence as she saw the blood streaming down my face, and my pain seemed obvious. She gently touched my face with a torn piece of her shirt, and wiped some of the blood away. 

"Crass…" she said after looking at my eyes for a few seconds.

"Yeah?"

"I…" she started again, but couldn't continue.

"I know" I said, sure that I was thinking what she was thinking. I wiped away her tears, and managed to smile at her, even though the pain was staggering.

"Oh my God!" she screamed suddenly. I looked behind me, and saw the Xi'an agent hovering towards us at an alarming speed, and he fired the energy ball he had charged up earlier. It hit me in the back, and flung Amy and I a few hundred meters. In midair, I tried to make a cocoon around her so that she wouldn't get as injured as she normally would, since she didn't have any kind of armor on her. Lucky for us, we landed on a soft patch of sand, and Amy was cushioned from the impact, since I hit it first. I looked at her face for any signs of life.

"Amy, speak to me!" I shook her a little, but I knew for fact she had lost consciousness, maybe worse…

"You bastard!" I said in a rage, and I completely lost control. The rage had built up, and what happened to Amy was the breaking point. The blue crystal thing on my chest started glowing red inside, and then the whole thing became a glowing/burning crimson red. My armor started glowing red, and my weapons started changing; things that were one part of a certain weapon went to another part, and they looked completely different, and a lot deadlier. I activated the hidden wrist guns, and grabbed the hidden guns on my legs' holsters. My normal shield, which was very useless this whole fight, changed its color, and it could be seen cocooning my body. I charged at him, and shot everything I had at it.

It was fast; impossibly fast. It disappeared and reappeared from one place to another, and managed to dodge all my shots (like people from DBZ when they dodge a punch or kick). I stopped firing, exhausted from all the energy it took me to do it, and tried to catch my breath. Then it reappeared a few feet in front of me.

"You weakling… you are no match for me. Just like your little girlfriend."

"How dare you!" I screamed, and started shooting it again. I got it by surprise this time, and he got hit full-fledged. 

"Argghhh" he said, and fell to the ground.

"This is for my pain" I said as I punched him in the gut "My anger" I said as I kneed him in the ribs "And all my sorrow!" I said and I punch him in the face, and blasted it with a MPPC. Then I focused all my energy to my MPPC, and charged it up. When I was sure it was at full power, I shot it at him.

***

I started stirring, and I could see the two still at it. Then Crass (I think it was Crass) stopped moving, and Joe stopped in front of him. It seemed like they were talking, but then all of a sudden, Crass started beating the life out of the guy. Then Crass went high into the air, and seemed to be charging something. Then he fired, and a huge shaft of bright white light came out of him, and went straight at the fallen Joe. At first I thought that Joe had somehow absorbed the beam, since there wasn't any explosion of anything, the light just went straight down. Then Crass quickly went into the air, and then the explosion happened. It was beautiful, even though it was deadly. It looked like a rainbow of colors exploding from one spot; Joe Black. Then I just lay down in the sand, watching as the explosion died out, and as Crass flew to me.

***

I flew to Amy quickly, in the hope that I could somehow save her life. As I approached, me fears were alleviated; she was standing up, waiting to go into my arms.

"You made it!" she said, and ran to where I landed with her arms outstretched. I disengaged my HES.

"Did you ever doubt me?" I asked as she wrapped her arms around my neck. She still had her momentum from her run, so it made her travel in a circular motion, with me as the pivot. I turned to keep her in the air until I could see that it really was her, and that I wasn't really imagining all of it. I slowed the spinning to the stop, and put her on her feet.

I was about to say something professional and stoic to keep up the image of being an intergalactic representative, but she just put her index finger to my lips, and said "Sshhh". I understood, and let her just hold onto me for awhile; she was in a pretty bad shape…

When she finally gained some of her energy back, she looked at my eyes again. She had lost the fire of life that used to burn in them after all this; they were dull now. But as I gazed into those pools of her essence, I saw that they were coming back to life, they just needed a little time to recover. But then all of a sudden they grew scared, and I was out of my trance.

"He's back!" she said.

"What? Man, not again." I said, and reengaging my HES. I turned around, and put Amy behind me.

"What does it take to kill you?" I said in frustration.

I was about to shoot him, when all of a sudden my handgun shot him in the head. _What the hell? OMG! My armor is haunted!_

I was about to wet my pants until I noticed the hand that was holding the gun. I turned around until I saw Amy.

"I told you I'd get him" she said, and had a smile on her face. She had come back to life.

"That's my Amy!" I said cheerfully, and raised her up like a mother would hold up her baby (under the armpits) and started spinning around again. Both of us just kept on spinning until I lost my balance, and landed on top of her. Luckily, my HES had retracted, and she was still in that soft patch of sand.

"You know what I've always wanted to do with you Amy?"

"I think I have a slight clue…" I lowered my head to hers, and she closed her eyes, and wrapped her arms around my head.

***

The fleet finally reached the planet. It had jumped to the wrong coordinates, but was close enough to the planet to cruise to it. The distress beacon had been received not too long ago, and the fleet was immediately mobilized. A satellite had been found, and it was destroyed, since initial scans indicated that it had weapons on it. The carriers launched all their fighters, and spread them throughout the planet in search of the Xi'an pilot. Some people on Zi thought a plague was coming from the sky as the ships unloaded.

"This is Alpha One. Xi'an pilot has been spotted. Request permission to engage" said the Herculean X3's pilot.

"Permission granted Alpha One" said Mission Control from the flagship.

"Engaging" said the Pilot, and locked his CT-808 Zit on the Xi'an pilot. The status screen said the bomb was locked on, and he dropped it. The Herculean X3 quickly accelerated away from the soon-to-be ground zero, not noticing the two humans nearby the fallen Xi'an.

(Mission Control-) "Commander Molotov, the bomb will hit in t-minus five…"

***

"Crass?"

***

"Four…"

***

"Yeah?"

***

"Three"

***

"I've never told you this before, but…"

***

"Two"

***

"I love you"

***

"One"

***

"I know" I said. After all we had been through, all the pain, suffering, and loss, our lips finally touched…

***

An eerie white flash exploded on the surface of Zi. It was so bright, people from a quarter of the planet could see it, and it blinded the Terran Fleet in space. The explosion forced the atmosphere to make a bubble on the atmosphere's surface. The sudden rush of air blew the sand miles away, and in severe cases, it rained sand for a few minutes when the floating sand finally settled. The vacuum made by the sudden loss of air made everything contract, and anything close enough got sucked in and crushed. The Judges and knocked out Zoids were lucky to have been flung away, because everything that got sucked by the vacuum was crushed with enough forced to change Zi's rotational speed. At Ground Zero, the sand got so hot that it melted, and when it cooled down, became a glass surface on the once forbidding desert; if one looked at it from far away enough, they may have thought that it was ice.

***

"Commander, ground forces have scanned the area, and have found no traces of the Xi'an pilot, or anything else within a 2 mile radius from the epicenter. I think its safe to say that the mission was a success"

"Indeed" said a man in the shadows. All that could be seen was his hand holding out a glass of blood red wine. He started to swish it around the glass. "Tell Lunar Base 001 that the area has been cleared, and to send in the Ambassadors' ships"

"Yes sir" the first mate said. He did as he was told, but was asked about the two research scientists that sent the distress signal.

"Sir, Lunar Base 001 requests a report on what happened to their scientists…" he said as he turned to the Commander's chair, but found him missing.

"Tell them that the Xi'an pilot had killed them before we arrived" said the Commander. The mate looked to where his voice was coming from, and saw him walking down the corridor to his quarters. "I don't care about the details"

***

Well, that's the end to "Amy's First Kiss", I hope ya'll liked it!

Questions? Comments? Send them to yarft@yahoo.com 


	7. Epilouge

**Amy's First Kiss**

**Epilogue**

By: Sci-Fi-Raptor

Disclaimer: I Don't own Zoids

***

The Xi'an pilot adjusted the radio until it found a frequency from one of Zi's news stations. After a few minute of searching, he fnally found what he wanted.

"This is Mary Wong of WXPXMZ101, reporting on the horror of what has happened within the last 24 hours:

The fleet left as quickly as it had come, and exploded its bomb. All of Zi could feel the explosion, and some thought it was the end of the world.

Soon, the "Ambassador ships arrived, and landed all throughout Zi, each landing in a major population concentration (mostly major cities). They gave out reassurances that they were there in peace, and the bomb that had exploded was not meant for them, but a fugitive that had sought refuge on their planet. Soon, Zi's most prominent leaders (including the Back Draft) met the Earth representatives in a historical summit. They were negotiating terms for the creation of a supreme government on Zi, and the transition of Zi from being a lone planet into a member of the Intergalactic Alliance. In a few short hours, the negotiations were set, and the papers were ready to be signed. After an exhausting 2 hours of signing, the planet Zi was now a member of the Intergalactic Alliance, and had acquired a republican government. When the signing was done, all 200 guests were invited to the Dining Hall, and served their first of many Terran dishes. Then they were all slaughtered; each and every one of them. The Terran Special Forces stormed into the room, and shot anything that moved (even themselves, but they were impervious to their own fire).

Soon, the Ambassador ships showed their true purpose; they were troop transports. With all governments in disarray, all resistance was easily crushed by the massive numbers of Mechanized war platforms that they had (a/n like Crass' HEV's). Within a few short hours, they subjugated most of Zi's population by taking over the cities that they were situated in. Now they seek to enslave the rest of us, and we must fight!

People of Zi, we have always been fragmented, but we must unite in these dark days, or there will be darker days ahead. We must… what! Oh no! They're here! Ahh!!!" Screaming and gunfire could be heard in the background, and then silence. The station had been taken off the air.

***

"Do you believe us now?"

"You've got to be kidding me!" Crass said to the Xi'an pilot. "Are you telling me that you guys are the good guys, and we're the bad guys?"

"Yes"

"But there's no way!"

Okay, it's me (Amy) again, and Crass and I are pretty much alive. Well, life is so weird. You start off one day getting dumped by someone from your planet, and you end up kissing an alien as a dooms-day bomb explodes nearby! I never knew that Crass was an alien from another planet, and from what I understand, he is (or was) part of those people that took over my planet. It seems that the Xi'an were always a peace loving civilization, and they were trying to save the universe from the Terrans, a race of people that looks like us (the one Crass is part of). It seems that the Terrans' government made its people think that they made alliances with other races, but what they really did was enslave them. But to keep them from ever finding out, they brainwashed a few people from the races they enslaved, and sent them to Terra to pretend that they were ambassadors. And the people that were sent to other planets to be Terra's ambassadors were killed en-route. 

All this time Crass thought that he was protecting my planet, me, and us, but it turned out that he was helping to ruin it all. But I can't blame him… he didn't know what he was doing. He just thought that he was doing the right thing, but in the end, it will have to be the Xi'an that will save us all.

The Xi'an saved our lives actually. When we were about to kiss, they dropped a bomb on us to get rid of the Xi'an, but he teleported all of us to his home planet at the last second. It was weird. I was looking at the desert sky when I closed my eyes, and when I opened them, I saw a strange looking green/purple sky. Then we found out all the stuff about the Terrans.

But Crass couldn't believe them, so he demanded proof. So they got this huge machine, and they played a broadcast from the planet. But Crass still wouldn't believe them.

"I still don't believe you. You guys probably… made it up. Yeah, anyone could easily make up something like that."

"Stubborn, isn't he" the Xi'an told me.

"Yeah…"

"Well, if you must have proof, we will send you to the planet to show you what horrors your race commits." said the Xi'an. He extended his arm for Crass to hold.

"Don't think I trust you yet" he said, and turned on his HES. Then he touched the Xi'an's hand. They instantly transported.

***

I can't believe it… everything I believed in was a lie… The Xi'an teleported us to the planet, and it was smoldering. I could smell the stench of death, and fire. The Mech's were patrolling the area, and another group was escorting a city's worth of prisoners. They led them to the "Ambassador" ship, and went back to round more slaves. Then one noticed the Xi'an, and started shooting at us. Before we got shot, the Xi'an teleported us back to the room.

***

Crass came back quickly, but he looked very depressed. I slowly walked up to him and held his hand. He squeezed it a little, and looked at me with the saddest face I've ever seen; I saw tears dropping from his eyes. Then he looked mad.

"I swear… " he started. "I promise that I'll get Molotov. He'll pay for all he's done" He had this look on his face that might have killed him. "No matter what it takes"

***

I actually had the idea for this story around the time I conceived my other one, "Legacy of the Ancients" but it was supposed to be called "Hearts of Iron", and was supposed to be about a crazy scientist that made Mech's, heartless, soulless Zoids with massive destruction power. But I never really got around to doing that, so I just focused on my other story. But about two weeks before I wrote this epilogue, I remembered it while I was studying for the SAT's. I started writing it, and finished about half of it when I was a few days away from taking it, so I had to stop for about a week. Then I started again, and got almost all of it done, but then I had to study for the AP tests, but was so into writing it, I disregarded them, and strove to finish this. And here you have the spoils of my toil!

Well that's the end of "Amy's First Kiss". I've considered starting a sequel to this, but I'll do it if enough people want me to. But until then, adios amigos! 

Questions? Comments? Send them to yarft@yahoo.com


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